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In this episode, we get to share a joyful conversation with Dr. Manoj Krishna.
Manoj grew up in India and built a highly successful career as a spine surgeon before, following a relationship breakdown, deciding to devote his life to helping others understand themselves, their actions and their emotions. He has gone on to design and launch one of the world’s most exciting wellbeing and personal development apps, HappierMe.
We discuss his own life, his motivations for the work he does now and what we can all do to help our young people live meaningful and positive lives, where collaboration, understanding and human wisdom is front and centre.
Subscribe to The Learning Bridge wherever you get your podcasts: https://thelearningbridge.bepodcast.network/subscribe
About the host
Richard Gerver is a sought-after speaker, world-renowned thinker, and bestselling author of books including Change and Simple Thinking. His career began in education, first as a teacher and then as a school principal, when he turned the fortunes of a failing school and its pupils around in just two years.
Now regarded as one of the world's leading thinkers on human leadership and organisational transformation, Richard has worked with an extraordinary range of people, from elite athletes to former US President Barack Obama. Named UK Business Speaker of the Year three times, Richard has been invited to speak on the world’s most recognised stages, including TED, the RSA and the BBC.
Follow Richard on Twitter @richardgerver and on LinkedIn.
Explore more BE Podcast Network shows:
- Transformative Principal: https://bit.ly/3vPSMY3
- The Authority Podcast: https://bit.ly/48dhakQ
- Morning Motivation for Educators: https://bit.ly/42dLGJa
- Tell Me This: https://bit.ly/4b7muIc
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🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
Creators & Guests
What is The Learning Bridge with Richard Gerver?
Hosted by Richard Gerver, one of the world’s leading thinkers on human potential, leadership, and organisational transformation, The Learning Bridge brings you conversations with a series of truly remarkable individuals from a variety of fields and backgrounds.
As a longtime educator who transitioned into a role as a leading international speaker and author, Richard has never stopped learning. He’s served as an advisor to elite sporting bodies, major corporations, and global leaders, and in each opportunity has sought to learn and grow.
Through this series, you’ll learn, too. And you’ll hear an optimistic view from Richard and his guests: the future of the world, and for our children, can be brighter than we imagine. All it takes is the bridge to learning and opportunity.
[00:00:00] Hello and thanks for joining us. My name is Richard Gerver. I've worked in education, human development and leadership for the last three decades. In this podcast series I'm chatting to a diverse range of fascinating people from a number of different fields, business, sport, the arts, education and philanthropy, to explore what our young people and organisations really need.
Richard Gerver: in order to thrive, not just survive, in times of increasing change and uncertainty. Welcome to The Learning Bridge. Today, my guest is A remarkable man an extraordinary human being with an extraordinary story to tell and I [00:01:00] can't wait for you to meet him. So, I'd like to welcome to the podcast today, Manoj Krishna.
Manoj, we've known each other for a very, very long time. And what I'd like to get you to do just to, to get us started is to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and particularly what you're up to at the moment. Okay.
Manoj Krishna: Well, thank you so much, Richard. Always a pleasure to shoot the breeze with you hang out.
So my background is I started actually my first qualification. The one I regard as most important is I'm a human being like you and everyone else. So if someone asks me, who are you? That's what I say I am. But on the way, I've done spine surgery for 30 years and I was just moved by the suffering in the world.
and felt that we have the wisdom in the world to put an end to it, [00:02:00] both in our own lives and in the world at large. And this wisdom comes from self knowledge. It's free, easily accessible, but it's not taught. in education, anywhere. And so I started the Human Wisdom Project and created the Happier ME app, just to make it easy and simple, for everyone who wants to change their life and make the most of it, to have all the tools available to Go on this journey of learning about yourself and how your mind works, not according to Manoj or Richard or anybody else, but just as you are.
But in that journey of learning about yourself and understanding how your mind works, your life transforms. And so you can prevent so many problems from occurring in the first place. and resolve them much more easily when they occur. I hope that's a simple enough introduction.
Richard Gerver: Absolutely. And you know, one of the [00:03:00] things that I think has always struck me about you Manoj is, is your passion for this, your authenticity.
You know, I know from day one, if you were in a position to give this incredible tool to the world for free, you would have given it to the world. And, and what I really want to understand because we are living in this extraordinary time in a very difficult place, and we might come on to some of those challenges in more detail as we talk in a increasingly polarized and angry world.
You know, that level of philanthropy, that level of selflessness, that, that level of generosity in your own life. I'd love to unpick just a little bit more, really, if we can. And to start by just getting to know you and your journey. Can you tell us a little bit about your own childhood and, and really your own education?
Yes, I
Manoj Krishna: had a pretty happy childhood, playing out with friends and just [00:04:00] flourishing. So I was fortunate not to have any trauma, which, as you know, a lot of people aren't in that position. I grew up in India, in Pune. I was head boy of the school, for what it's worth. And I was involved in debating, in theatre, amateur theatre.
I used to travel around. I remember, actually, a guy came up to me after, I was only 16 or 17, he said, you should be Prime Minister after one of my
Richard Gerver: talks. Anyway,
Manoj Krishna: that's a long time ago. And then I came to, but I remember being curious. from a really young age about what I'm feeling and why. I can remember feeling lonely when I was 18, thinking I'm surrounded by people who love me.
I love them. Why do I have this feeling? And so this curiosity about what's going on in me and my own thinking and feeling has kept me going all through my life. And really what I'm doing now is just the fruit of all that inquiry. That's what I've been doing for the last [00:05:00] 40 years.
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Richard Gerver: I mean, one of the things, just to jump in, that thing, it's really interesting.
A couple of things that really sparked mine, but one is that point you just made about an 18 being surrounded by love and friendship, but still feeling lonely. I'd love to unpick that a bit, because I think that's a really common experience, particularly for our adolescents, for our teenagers. I remember having exactly the same feeling.
You know, my parents sacrificed everything for me to go to a private school in the UK. They weren't rich, they weren't they didn't come from a, an upper middle class family, they were third generation, fourth generation, generation immigrants. And of course, one of the things I think, particularly for immigration and immigrants coming into English society at that time was private education was the pinnacle, right?
Yes. So they sacrificed everything for me to go. So I had a, a, a loving, incredibly loving family, particularly loving mother. I had a [00:06:00] big family unit, as is the case often from different ethnic groups, particularly, and I'm from a Jewish background, so I had a very loving, kind of, maternal Jewish family background.
My parents sent me to what was you can't get away from it, a phenomenal education environment with the richness of resource and, and all of those things that that brings with it. But I remember about probably when I was about 16, 17, feeling incredibly lonely. despite being in that environment and not necessarily being unpopular at school, but I think for me a lot of that stemmed from the fact that I wasn't interested in the same thing a lot of my peers were and I went to a boys only school and you know the school's culture was very sports orientated, very science orientated, very high performing examinations and top universities orientated.
And I was a little bit different because I was [00:07:00] fascinated, I was passionate about the arts and creativity. And I just wonder where do you think your loneliness at that age that, that did it resonate? Where did it come from?
Manoj Krishna: The curious thing is that loneliness isn't personal to you or me.
Loneliness is part of being human. So just as Isaac Newton saw an apple fall from a tree in his mother's garden, and just asked why. And that question, why, opens a door to gravity, and he became one of the world's greatest scientists. So we can look at loneliness and say, Why? What's going on? And when you investigate it, you realize that 30 percent of people in marriages are lonely.
So it's not just about being with people, it's about having that depth of connection. So I think what young people lack, and most human beings lack, is that depth of connection. We just don't know how to have really deep connections with other human beings. That's one part of loneliness, and I [00:08:00] think that's a skill we can learn.
It's around communication, vulnerability, caring, love, all of that where Whatever relationship you're in, you can take it deeper and deepen the bonds you have with your friends, your family your partners, all that. A second part of loneliness, I think, Richard, is we're not comfortable in our own skin.
A lot of people want to be something else. They think they're inadequate in some way because we're conditioned through our environment to believing that we're not good enough, there is some ideal that we need to go after. So I need to be more handsome or more rich or more accomplished or more famous or whatever it might be.
Or I don't have the right shaped body or and so on. So that sense of being uncomfortable in our own skin, that's one part of it. And I think a third element of it is deep down at the core of being human. is our [00:09:00] sense of inner emptiness. And if we can make our peace with that, then, so there's two ways you can deal with loneliness.
Either you travel inwards, and you make your peace with being okay with who you are, accepting yourself completely. And notice the restlessness you feel when you're sitting alone, for example just watching, doing nothing, just sitting alone, you feel that restlessness, you want to reach for the phone or whatever.
Just stay with that and it transforms gently into a sense of peace. Or you can go outwards and deepen your connections with others. Now this is something that's That is self evident when you ask the question, why? What's behind the feeling of loneliness? And that's really at the core of the happier me approach to learning about yourself, which involves only three steps.
To observe what's happening, in this case loneliness, [00:10:00] to accept it's part of being human, so it's coming from me, and then to ask a question, what's going on? And that question opens a door to learning. And the more you learn, you realize, in a mysterious, magical way, things change.
So, how, I mean you talk with such profound wisdom now.
How did you deal with that as an 18 year old, when Happier Me didn't exist? What? Oh, I just wish it had. How did your journey evolve that way? Yeah, I
really wish it had. I was curious. I went around all the religions, all the books, all the writers, and then you realize the fundamental truth was that this wisdom doesn't lie in books.
It lies in learning about what's happening in yourself. It's like, here's a glass of water, and here are a thousand books that tell you what water tastes like. [00:11:00] You have to actually take that journey to drink that water. Then you know, and then it changes your life. then it quenches your thirst, if you know what I mean, if you use that analogy.
And it's so simple. It just comes from this process of looking and learning about yourself. I
Richard Gerver: think it's really interesting. And I think what you're talking about fascinates me from so many points of view, because in many ways, what you're talking about is the kind of the natural state we're born to, which is to learn, to be curious, to constantly ask questions.
Yes. You know, why a child under five will say why do I feel this way? Why is the sky blue? Why is, why, why, why, why? No matter what you answer, and I've said this on previous podcast episodes we keep getting that plethora of, but why, but why, but why? And it fascinates me in a way because you're somebody who, as a late teen, your instinct was to continue to question, to explore, to look at the world, not as you were told [00:12:00] about it, but to look at the world as you could explore it.
And I wonder where that ability to remain curious came from in your young life because I wonder whether between very young childhood. and 18, 19 years of age, we actually are inadvertently taught to trust others to give us the answers and to tell us where the answers are. You know, what, what was it, do you think, can you put your finger on anything that says, well, I was always curious.
That's why I went to books. That's why I went to What was it about your own upbringing, your parental upbringing, your societal upbringing, that allowed you to go, but actually the answer lies in my own ability to research, explore,
Manoj Krishna: and learn? Yes. I think I was blessed with good friends. who were equally curious.
And I think like you, Richard, I was always an oddball. I never fitted into anything. Do you know what I [00:13:00] mean? Yeah. And, but I really wish happier me was around to help me make sense of what I was feeling, what's going on in the world, in my life. Now it's so clear. And you talked earlier about compassion and philanthropy.
And I think the more you learn about yourself, the more you realize you're the same human being as everyone else, deep down. You and I, deep down, are the same human being at a subatomic level, at a DNA level, and even in the way our mind works, like a heart works in the same way, so does our mind. From that understanding that you and I are the same human being comes compassion, comes this feeling that, Oh my God, there's so much suffering in the world.
Surely, You can do, do what you can that's all I'm saying. Do what you can to put an end to it, because you have an understanding to do something with it.
Richard Gerver: I think one of the things that, funnily enough, I've, I've just written a blog this [00:14:00] morning about the, we need a renaissance. We need to, to re reintroduce the word nuance to the way the world sees itself.
Pardon me. And I wonder, Whether you know part of part of the challenge for us all as a society is to be less obsessed with putting people in specific buckets or pens or filtered systems to the point where we even use the back end of the alphabet these days to define what generation you belong to.
And therefore. define the kind of person we think you are. And so much of what you talk about is, is that art of, it, it's the grey between the black and white. It's the shades of grey. It's, it's the, it's having the courage, isn't it? Just to, first of all, to take that step into [00:15:00] understanding there's more to life than black and white.
And, and I wonder if you can talk to that a little bit. Again one of the things that I think for me, defines you as a person is courage, right? And we'll take some steps back here. I'd love to know, it must have taken huge courage for you to leave a career as a surgeon, which with all due respect is it is something you will have studied for for many, many years, worked very hard to achieve.
and then you're at the pinnacle of your career and you take a step back from that. That takes courage. As an 18 year old, to challenge the wisdom of your own thinking takes courage. To, and I know how hard you've worked to bring happier me human wisdom to the world, has taken enormous personal sacrifice and courage.
Can you talk to me a little bit about [00:16:00] that courage? Where it comes from and how you nourish it?
Manoj Krishna: Yes, it's a very interesting question, because when you go inwards to try and find the answer, often there isn't something clear. I think it comes from just taking baby steps. So I heard this hospital being bombed in the Middle East in the previous war.
I know there's one going on right now. And I felt moved by the cries of these children. And I just start took the first step, which was to start talking in the schools about peace and wisdom and all of that. And then I discovered my God, these 10 year old children already have this wisdom. But we're missing a trick.
We think education is about putting in their heads what we know. but instead we should be drawing out from them their own innate wisdom, which is what we're trying to do with Happier Me. And so gradually that leaves, one step leads to another, and then you realize You think about your life as a whole you've got 80 years [00:17:00] or whatever you've got, and when you look back, do you want your life to be defined by fear?
You see, most of our lives are defined by fear. We live inside these walls that our fear creates. And we think, but there's so much of life beyond those walls of fear. Once you see clearly that there is a life beyond, that's what gives you courage to change. Everyone around me thought I was, my mother couldn't understand why I was leaving a perfectly well paid career to do something that didn't pay anything at all, you know?
Yeah, yeah. But passion drives courage, you see. So if you find your passion, whatever it might be, you'll find courage flows. It's,
Richard Gerver: I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because in some ways what you're describing whether we're talking about our own personal development, human development, knowledge development, all of these things basically could be [00:18:00] wrapped in the term of learning, right?
You know, one of the things I've often said to people is you learn nothing new by getting something right. You only ever learn something new from the point of a mistake or the realisation you don't know something or you can't do something. Yet so much of our existence, for so many of us, is strangled by a fear of exposing a lack of knowledge, a weakness, an inability to do something.
That we We spend so much of our lives almost trying to build a wall to justify why we're not. And I wonder whether one of the significant things about our human development, and as you describe this innate wisdom in young children, almost dissipates as we get older. Is linked to the same the same thing about learning kind of slowing and diminishing as we get older, which links to this whole idea, and it seems to be a recurring theme on, on the podcast series so [00:19:00] far.
This, this constant belief that the, the one task in life. is to find certainty. And when you find certainty or your perception of certainty, it's to hold on to it. It's to protect it. At all costs. And what's, what's your advice, particularly for young people, maybe also not just for educators and educational leaders, but maybe managers and leaders in the adult world, in the corporate environment too.
How do we begin to help people loosen their grip on their need for their version of certainty?
Manoj Krishna: Yes. You see, again, it comes from just being curious about your own mind and learning. You mentioned the word learning so often, but education is all about learning. But at the moment, it's one dimensional. We're only learning [00:20:00] about the world around us, but not about ourselves.
I think this fundamentally needs to change in education. So a subject called self knowledge needs to be part of it because All the information we're teaching these children is on their phone, yet we're punishing them by saying memorize this, repeat it in the exam, if you succeed, you're successful, otherwise you're a failure.
And the teachers themselves who are teaching all these subjects don't have to memorize that same material, you see. So. We need to rethink education fundamentally, but if you begin your journey of being curious about yourself, what's going on in my own mind, you'll find a natural sense of order comes into being where you are at peace with yourself, you are mentally healthy, you can meet whatever challenge comes on the outside.
with a certain serenity. You meet the challenge, but it doesn't create the [00:21:00] mental storm in your own head. You can avoid addiction. And all the skills leaders need, or managers need, or humans need, comes from this deeper self understanding. And it begins with curiosity. with a mind that's open to learning about itself, that's not judgmental.
So simple, you see, but we are never taught to question our own thinking. So if you had this idea, ask this question, why do I think this way? Where do my beliefs come from? I'm Muslim, I'm Hindu, I'm Christian, I'm Jewish, I'm Israeli, I'm Palestinian, I'm Ukrainian. It's all conditioning. And if you're curious, you realize.
We're all conditioned by our environment, we're not aware we're being conditioned, and yet we become attached to that conditioning. It doesn't make any, it's not intelligent, you see what I mean? I mean, an intelligent person wouldn't do that. But it [00:22:00] happens because we're not aware of what's happening in our own mind.
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Richard Gerver: I think the word you use there is really interesting, and I'm just going to play devil's advocate for a minute. As you know, I often do in our conversations. Yes, yes. But actually, I, I'm, I want to come at this from a view that is almost polar opposite to where I come from, and, and just get your, your version on this, right?
We're talking about learning, we're talking about education, we're talking about knowledge you know, we're talking about all of these things. And, and one of the things we hear often from people who advocate, if you like, a very classicist version of what education needs to be is, but without knowledge, you have nothing, right?
Without knowing stuff, you, you have nothing. Almost to the point where your, your cognizance and understanding of the world cannot possibly have value until you know enough stuff to form a value about it. And I'd like to know. First of all, your view on that, but also [00:23:00] then related back to your own journey in existence.
You know, as, as we've said, you spent 30 years in a very challenging area of medicine, right? Which requires a three dimensionality to your knowledge, your experience, your, your experience, your skills. How do you marry those things together? And I, I guess the cherry on the icing of this very complicated question, Manoj.
is what do you think was the most important thing you brought to your job as a surgeon?
Manoj Krishna: Yes. Okay. So I think knowledge is really important. No question. I'd say self knowledge is equally important, or if not more so, because in the end, if you ask young people, what do you want from your life? They say, we want two things.
We want to be happy and we want to be successful. All right. Now, I said, is happiness taught? Of course it isn't. [00:24:00] So for happiness, as Sophocles said, two and a half thousand years ago you need wisdom. Your happiness depends on your wisdom, which depends. It's self knowledge, even when it comes to success.
and attainment. All the research shows, and I'm sure anyone who wants to can access it, that your emotional intelligence plays a huge role in your success. And this research is coming from the 1950s. That means your grade attainments don't, don't relate, correlate with, directly with your so called material success.
So if we want both of those, We want to give young people what they really want. Education needs to evolve so it meets the needs of young people rather than the needs of the teachers and educators. So if I'm a geography teacher I think, oh, geography should be the most important thing and I load the curriculum with what I think they need to learn and so on.
I'm not saying knowledge is [00:25:00] not needed, it's absolutely needed, but we live in an age where. It's easily accessible. I just need to know where to access it. I don't need to know the capitals of every country in the world and memorize and repeat it in an exam. I just need to know where to find it and that there is a capital and so on.
So I think that a real revolution in education is needed because we live in a society where we can see the failure of that model. in real life. There are 32 wars in the world right now, Richard, not just the one in Israel and Ukraine. 76 percent of employees in U. S. companies have a mental health problem.
One in six people have a substance abuse problem. 20 percent of marriages are abusive. About 17 percent of teenagers are self harming. 75 percent of people lack soft skills according to [00:26:00] employees, managers, and half the leaders are failing within two years, no matter what training they're getting.
So all of this boils down to a lack of this deeper self understanding. So you see, there's only one thing, but it could have a magical effect on so many different areas of our life. And if we want to heal the world and flourish in it ourselves, This is a vital piece that's missing, I think, and something that's easily accessible to every human being.
You don't need to be clever to learn to swim. You don't need to be clever to learn that you're conditioned and to ask questions of your own
Richard Gerver: life, right? I just, just fascinating and I hope our listeners are just being stimulated as much as I am in terms of my own thinking and thought process here because one of the things that actually strikes me is allowing ourselves permission to take the time just to think.
Just to [00:27:00] think, is, is such a one of the things that strikes me about the modern world, we've, we've, we've kind of touched on it almost superficially along the way, and around technology, is technology has brought us incredible benefits and benefits we're yet to see. The world is is like anything, there are always dark and light nuance to everything we see, and technology has incredible benefits.
But one of the things that I think I see more and more with technology, and particularly in the on demand era we live in, right, the instancy world we live in you know, if, if I want to listen to a piece of music, I listen to it now. If I want a piece of knowledge, I Google it now. You know, everything has this, this instancy.
Is actually that place and time to allow ourselves to think, to it seems to me the world has become almost turned itself on its head to the point where stillness time, we talked earlier about loneliness and [00:28:00] actually sometimes being alone has enormous power, yet we've almost convinced ourselves that it doesn't any longer that somehow time on your own doing nothing is time badly spent.
It seems to me that a lot of what you're talking about is giving ourselves permission to think, to reflect, to meditate, not necessarily, but meditating in whatever way that word means to people. You know, again, is that something you think is hugely important? And is it something we do need to give ourselves more permission for?
Yes. What
Manoj Krishna: do I want from my life? Let's start with some simple questions that every human being could ask. What do I want from my life? Okay, I want to be successful, but why do I want to be successful? And if you keep asking the question why, you'll come to a point where you'll say, but what I really want is to be at peace in myself.
And then you can ask, but why am I not at peace? You see, because that's the reason why people meditate. So why aren't we [00:29:00] at peace? And the answer lies in exploring that question. There's so many layers, as you know, to that question. But the more you see, the other thing to realize is our mind is wired to constantly look on the outside for something to make it feel good on the inside.
And the modern world offers that in droves now with technology, social media all of that entertainment, as you said, on our fingertips. But the more we are stimulated from the outside, the more stimulation we need. And the further and further we get from this feeling of peace inside. So no matter how much money you have, how much power you have, or success.
Most people are missing this thing which they really yearned for, which is this deep sense of being at peace with themselves. And that comes from this learning from solitude, from spending time on your own, from thinking about your own life. What do I want from my life? And so on, right?
Richard Gerver: I mean, I just want to, and thank [00:30:00] you, I want to go back and talk a little, explore this, this, this thing of success, right?
And, and I'd love your take on this, because again, it seems to me that our lives become dominated by a need for a perception of success from maybe the time we're six, seven, eight, nine years of age, right? And then it becomes even, for so many of us, it becomes so dominant, this, this vision of, of what success is, of why we need it so badly, and why when we attain it, it is so lacking in actually slaking our thirst for what we perceive it to be.
Can you tell me a little bit about your thoughts on that? So many rich
Manoj Krishna: questions there, Richard. The first thing to realize is we're conditioned, so we don't have our original idea of what success is. If you ask yourself that question for yourself, what would a [00:31:00] successful life mean to you? And it might mean really happy relationships, having your own health, and so on.
So, again, if we ask, what's going on in our own mind underneath that? We learn, firstly, our mind takes what we have for granted. and focuses on what we don't have. So you have one house, you want the second one. So the mind wants more and more. So no amount of water will quench that thirst because five cars, 10 cars, a billion, whatever it is, it's not going to make you feel good inside for the long term.
The reason is to understand the nature of pleasure, all stimulation, all pleasure. is short lived, right? So it only lasts a moment and it's gone. So you might spend a year planning to go on holiday but the minute you finish that holiday it's finished. Then if you realize when the pleasure [00:32:00] ends It leaves a void.
The greater the pleasure, the greater the void. Look at all the Olympic athletes and the depressions they experience after they get their gold medals. It's so university well known, or pop stars, or rock stars, or whatever. So once you realize That the nature of pleasure is fleeting, and you spend all your life chasing one milestone after the other for five minutes of good whatever, that high, then you think, I need to rethink my life.
I need to feel good all the way along. And again, that comes from this inner work. So I would say, for me, Success is how you feel inside, it's not what you attain outside, it's how you feel inside.
Richard Gerver: I think that's such huge wisdom because in my career and I've been blessed to meet and interview some extraordinary people.
The one thing I often [00:33:00] describe is that the drive for success is actually a curse. Because really successful people, however we're defining that, whether it's status or wealth or whatever it might be. It seems to me that the more successful you become, the less satisfied you are. You know, some of the most at peace people I've met are people who have Very simple lives, and I don't mean that in a demeaning way they, they, you know It's really interesting when you look at the blue zones and you look at the the places in the world where life longevity is, is So immense compared to the the data of most developed countries.
Most of those blue zones are in what people might describe as developing or underdeveloped communities and and there is a simplicity to life. You know, they don't go to gyms, but they exercise because they get up every morning, they walk, they tend to plants or their [00:34:00] crops. The most important thing it seems to me is that they, they wake up most mornings and they have a purpose no matter what age they are.
And you, you talk to people in blue zones who are in their eighties, nineties, or even into their hundreds, and they feel they have a purpose. and of value in life. And I wonder, again, looking back on your own journey, Do you feel that you have always been driven by you went into medicine because you wanted to make people's lives better.
You left medicine and started to create the Human Wisdom Project and Happier Me. Do you think it's really important? That people are like we, we work with each other to help each other celebrate that sense of, of real purpose. Because again, all these successful people I've interviewed, pop stars, politicians, business people, they're all still looking for that myth of [00:35:00] success.
That mode where they how do they scratch the itch? You
Manoj Krishna: see, once you realize that nothing on the outside is going to make you feel good on the inside for the long term, that feeling of feeling good on the inside comes from your inner work, comes from looking and learning and asking questions and traveling inwards.
Once you see that really clearly, say you've had one success and you've had five minutes of good great feeling and then it goes. And you do it a second time and a third time, the intelligent person asks, what's going on here? Why am I, what's good? You see, the moment you ask why, so if you wake up and realize, what do I take for granted?
What's the one thing that's the most important thing in my life? And it's actually our breath, right? You know, if you can't breathe, the purpose of your life becomes to breathe. So [00:36:00] I think beyond living, we need to discover the joy and simplicity of living, of waking up with joy, of celebrating what we, looking at a sky and thinking, Oh my
Richard Gerver: God, look at that.
Awe and wonder, right? It's that awe and wonder. Absolutely. And then you don't
Manoj Krishna: need anything more than that,
Richard Gerver: Richard. Yeah it's interesting, isn't it? Because you talked earlier, and I think you've just defined it for me, about the wisdom of young children. And in many ways, We mistake it for naivety, right?
We, oh, they just don't know enough about life yet. Where actually, maybe the answer lies in they do. They know more about life than we realize, and maybe we overcomplicate the way we all see the world to the point where we stop looking at the clouds and going, how does that happen? Yeah, isn't that remarkable?
Isn't that amazing?
Manoj Krishna: Yeah, an oak tree [00:37:00] has 2, 800 species living in it. I mean, that itself, you know what I mean? So if we opened our eyes and saw the people in our lives, and the world we live in, and the food we eat with fresh eyes, we would realize Oh my God, what an amazing life we have. We don't need the houses and cars and fame and all of that because none of that is going to fill the thirst you have inside.
Richard Gerver: Well, if you had, and we're coming to the end of our interview now, our podcast a couple of questions to finish on. The first one is, is quite a big one, I think. If you had one piece of advice for educators and education leaders, about what gift they could bestow on their communities, and most importantly, their students.
What, and I know we could go on all day, we have. Could you distill that one gift into one piece of advice? [00:38:00]
Manoj Krishna: Okay, I gave a talk once to 900 kids in a school, and in the lunch break, a young girl came up to me and she said something that I found profoundly moving. And she said, I loved what you said.
And I said, what was it about what I said that you loved? She said, I thought I wasn't intelligent, but I now realize it's about the person that I am. So it's Developing the human being, not just their grades and all of that, and this development of the human being to be happy, healthy, mentally healthy, at peace with themselves and others, so we can live in a peaceful world.
See, educators have such a huge opportunity and responsibility to create a better future for humanity. If we can bring this self knowledge or this understanding of the self into education, in whatever small way you can do that, I think if you [00:39:00] can, it would enrich the lives of your children, your teachers, and create a positive impact.
a better future for humanity as a whole.
Richard Gerver: What an extraordinary thought to, to kind of wrap this on Manoj. Thank you so much. Final question. If people have been inspired by listening to our conversation and they want to know more, how can people connect with you and more importantly, find out more about Happier Me and the work you're doing?
What's the best route for them to do that? So it's very
Manoj Krishna: simple. You can download the Happier Me app. It's one word. Or you can go to happierme. app. That's the website. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'd love to have conversations to see how we can bring this deeper understanding to the world. Because I believe humanity is on a tipping point and we only have a hundred years or less.
And if we work together and bring this wisdom to bear [00:40:00] to solve the big problems we have, whether it's war or climate change or mental health or addiction or relationship conflict, we genuinely have the wisdom in the world to create a better future for humanity as a whole.
Richard Gerver: Wow. Thank you, Manoj. Thank you so much for your time today.
I really hope people connect with you and, and thank you for your, your wisdom. And so thank you all so much for joining us today and if you'd like to find out more about this podcast, about my work, please check out my website richardgerver. com and subscribe to the podcast. It really helps. And also it means you don't miss future episodes.
So, until next time, here's to the future. [00:41:00]