The Promise of Wisdom with Sunil Raheja

A commonly held belief is that wisdom comes with age. In this episode, Sunil Raheja explains why wisdom is essential for living a rich, full life – no matter how old you are.

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Raheja says it is his privilege to work with senior leaders who feel stuck – empowering them to re-engage with deeper purpose and live life in crescendo, so their best days are still to come.

On this episode of the Live. Love. Engage. podcast:

• Sunil explains what are the four vital questions of life
• The importance of leaving a legacy
• Sunil’s definition of wisdom
• Why Sunil believes wisdom is like a diamond
• The difference between internal and external locus of control
• How someone can acquire wisdom

Connect with Sunil
Sunil’s workbook: drsunil.com/workbook
Sunil’s website: drsunil.com

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TRANSCRIPT

Gloria Grace Rand:
I am Gloria Grace Rand, and I am delighted to be with you again and to have a guest with us on the show. Always. One of my favorite things is when I get to interview interesting people, and today’s guest is one of those fascinating people who has a lot to offer our world right now, and I’m gonna tell you a bit more about him in a moment. But I want to first welcome Dr. Sunil Raheja.

Sunil Raheja:
That’s right. You did right there Gloria. Thank you. That’s wonderful.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yes. I wanted to make sure that I pronounce his name right. Right. And then I was like, stumbling. Anyway, but but we got it. So I’m so glad you’re here today. So let me share with our listeners just what you do in the world. So he is the author of the book, dancing With Wisdom, A Sacred Quest to restore Meaning, purpose, and Fun to your Life and Work, which definitely sounds like, sounds like something we all need to be able to make sure that we do, because otherwise what is the point? Right. , I think he’s also a psychiatrist, a blogger, a podcaster of his own and a coach. And he says it’s a privilege to work with senior leaders who feel stuck empowering them to reengage with deeper purpose and live life in Crescendo. So their best days are still to come. So are you a little musician there with that crescendo reference there? Actually, I’m

Sunil Raheja:
A musician. No, I’m not a musician at all. But I think, but it, it certainly this understanding that yeah, living with our best years ahead of us, I think particularly as we get older, there’s a tendency to talk about good old days, which I don’t really believe ever existed. And I think that, you know, as we get older that it is just gonna be downhill. But I believe that if we have the right understanding, the right perspective actually the best is yet to come.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Hmm. Yes. Well, I’m certainly counting on that because, and, and actually I believe that’s true because I, I really do feel like every decade that I’ve gone through has been better even than the one before. So, so far so good. So I’m getting ready to enter my sixth decade, I guess if you’re in your sixties or is it your seventh? I, I forget, but whatever , how that works math wise. But anyway, I’m gonna be 60 soon, so I’m looking forward to my sixties being even better than my fifties were.

Sunil Raheja:
Wonderful.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. So I, I usually do like to start off the podcast by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about your journey, you know, what, what got you maybe even interested in psychiatry and, and, and how you even then have become an author. So,

Sunil Raheja:
Wonderful. Well, it’s a long journey, I think for me. I mean, I, I came as a best place to start, probably start at the beginning really in sense of, I came as an immigrant child from from India to the uk. Uh and very much, you know, I think one of the, one of the sort of, you know, when you look back into your life, you think about the themes and patterns that have repeated themselves, and one of those themes and patterns. I’ve always been like an outsider. So coming as an immigrant child from India, I actually came speaking Hindi and the sort of perceived wisdom at that time was only speak to your child in one language or they’ll become confused. So although I came speaking Hindi I quickly forgot that and I only spoke English. And growing up going to school and meeting, you know, mixing with my peers I was often told, you know, this isn’t your country.

Sunil Raheja:
Your true home is in India. And so I had this sort of sense that actually now I belong over there, and this is at a time, which is hard to imagine now, but it was a time before the internet and for the, you know, before the connections that we had the technology gives us.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Right.

Sunil Raheja:
And so I grew, so I had no real connection with India in, you couldn’t make phone calls. If you wanted to write a letter, it would take two weeks for you to, you know, take a week for a letter to get there, take a week to come back. So there was no real communication. But when I eventually got to India, you know, I was only about eight years old, I realized actually, well, all my relatives told me that actually you are, you are English, you’re not Indian either. And I couldn’t speak the language.

Sunil Raheja:
And so a theme that’s followed me all my life is this sense of, of being an outsider. I, I got, you know, you mentioned about being a psychiatrist, so I, I trained to become a doctor again. I, it’s funny, I, I I entered into medical school not sure what I wanted to do with my life. And I was very good at mathematics and physics and subjects like that. But you know, again, in a naive 18, 19 year old, I thought, well, what’s the point of any of those subjects? You know, because, you know, you, you, you end up working for the defense industry and you create nuclear bombs and things like that. And the only career I could think of that was actually genuinely helping people was medicine. So that’s why I did medicine. But to be quite frank with you Gloria, I was totally unsuited for it because I was very left brained, as I understand now, very good at problem.

Sunil Raheja:
So solving in terms of, you know, would’ve done better in math or engineering, something like that. But medicine’s completely different. You know, it’s understanding the systems of the body it’s understanding, you know, the anatomy, the physiology, the biochemistry, the pathology, very descriptive subjects and I really struggled. I struggled a really big time. I think it’s, it’s, it’s a miracle of God that I even got through . I had a switch awakening. I was at medical school. That’s, that’s, that stayed with me to, to this very day. But again, it’s a sense of feeling an outsider. And I think I found my niche in psychiatry because psychiatry is very much about not treating people as machines, but treating them as people who, you know who have worries and fears and interact with within their families with wider society. So that’s always fascinated me.

Sunil Raheja:
You know, we need people who are, you know, who are you know who, who, who do internal medicine, who are who, who are surgeons. We need those people. But that just wasn’t me. And so I found my niche in psychiatry, but then as time has gone on, I’ve also become very fascinated by the whole area of positive psychology. And that’s really about why is it that some people, well, two, well, you take, take two groups of people who go through similar circumstances. Why is it some thrive and others, as it were, flounder? What’s the difference between them and the skills that you need to do well in life are very different to, as it were, to just dealing with illness. You know, health is not the opposite of illness. It’s qualitatively very different. And,that interest is growing. And that’s particularly one of the reasons why I’ve gone into coaching as well. So I work as a psychiatrist, but, but primarily as a coach using my psychiatry background to inform that as well.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. And I can see how they can be very complimentary to one another. So that’s, that makes sense. And, and yeah, I, I sympathize with, with your struggle. And, and yeah, I was like, that must have been so frustrating as a child. And, and here you’re struggling to, to get along in the uk then you go to India and then they’re like, well, no, you are still not, we’re still, you know, you’re, you’re English now. So it’s like, oh my goodness.

Sunil Raheja:
I think One of the things you begin to realize as well is that you have these struggles, and then as you get older, you realize everybody has their own struggles. And,you know, it’s it, and, and it, it’s, it’s, it’s very difficult to comment on somebody else’s struggles. You know, it might not look too big deal to you, but to them it’s big. It’s a bit like, you know, major surgery and minor surgery. You know, there is major surgery, you know, having have a corony artery bypass or you know, have, have, have,have a liver transplant that’s major surgery, and there’s minor surgery in terms of have a blood test or have a,you know, have a, a hernia removed, relatively minor. But if it’s your body, it’s all major surgery

Gloria Grace Rand:
That’s true.

Sunil Raheja:
Happening to you. So I think it’s, it’s, we all have our own sets of challenges and struggles, and because we all have different backgrounds and experiences, it’s very, it, it, it, yeah. We need to just as it were, treat each other with, with respect andaccept that we’ve got different challenges to go through.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. And one of the things I, I, I know you, you talk about is that our, our world has certainly changed over the last 50 years, . And, and, and you mentioned at the beginning, I mean, that when you grew up, there was no internet and, and that it took, you know, so long to be able to get letters. And I do remember, I remember that it was so you could to call long distance. Oh my gosh. It cost a fortune. And so you couldn’t stay on the phone long if you were talking to somebody, you know, in another part of the country or, or something like that. And now that’s something that we just take for granted that we can, I mean, I’m talking to you right now, over Zoom. I live in the United States and you’re in the uk, and yet we’re able to do this. So has there been a, a cost though, to our lives you know, with, with all of this? I mean, even though it’s great technology has been, you know, brought a lot of things good into our world, but has there been a cost to it as well?

Sunil Raheja:
Well, yes. I always think of Charles Dickens says in his book A Tale of Two Cities, he says, it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times. And I think technology has done amazing things. You know, I, I remember what, when, when we came from India, my mom would write letters to her, to her sisters, and to her parents back in, back, back in India. And it would take a week with letter to get there. And Mr. Burst at the other end replied immediately, it’d take a week back. And you’re right. You know, making a phone call with would cost a fortune. And now, as you said, here we are just interacting across the ocean. Uand it’s, you know, obviously apart from the electricity and the, you know, the software cost is, it’s, it’s free. It’s practically free, which is amazing.

Sunil Raheja:
But the thing is, the baseline has risen, so we don’t think anything of it. It’s now become commonplace. It’s become ordinary. So there is something I think about realizing, just in sense how, how privileged we are. And, you know, I’m very fascinated in this whole ob subject of, of wisdom. And I think part of wisdom is, is grasping,the good things that we have and, and the ways that we have been blessed and, and, and what we do have. We, because particularly in a world that’s becoming increasingly cynical, confusing, complex, chaotic,because I think if we don’t live with wisdom, what happens is that, you know, it, it produces a kind of noise, you know? And that is, that’s, that’s leading to higher rates of mental illness, unhappiness, frustration, when in many ways it doesn’t have to be that way at all. Uwe can look at things in, in a different way. We can have a different mindset, a different attitude. We can realize the privileges that we’ve been given. I Mean I’ve got a very,I’ve got a faith in a personal relationship with, with Jesus. And my faith in Christ, in a sense, very much grounds me because it’s my, my security is, is is not in, in what I do, it’s in what he’s done for me. Uand I think that’s, otherwise it’s crazy to lose, lose perspective.

Gloria Grace Rand:
What would you, what would you say to someone though, who is,maybe still is sort of struggling with,but the way things are these days? You know, things have, as you say, you know, we’ve gotten so cynical and, and, and it’s good that, you know, I, I recognize that you, you’ve got faith in a higher power,you know, that, that keeps you grounded. And, and I know I, you know, I believe in God as well, but,how do you help someone who maybe, either for some reason, maybe they don’t have that type of faith, or, or, or what would, what do you do to help them to be able to,to be able to manage , I guess, to build, to thrive in today’s world?

Sunil Raheja:
Yes. Well, in the book I talk about the four vital questions of life. And they are being, who am I called to be relating, how do I relate to others doing, what am I called to do that no one else can do? And ultimately leaving? And that’s, that’s the big question of leaving, leaving the world, but also leaving in terms of transitions, changing job, you know, leaving a relationship and all these kinda things. And I think wisdom has answers to, to, to those deep questions. You know, they’re, they’re questions that they’re at the back of our mind. We don’t ask them directly as that, but we do. But, but we are often question asking ourselves in one form or another, who am I in terms of what really, what are my values? What really matters to me? What, yeah. You know, who, who am I?

Sunil Raheja:
And then, and then relationships, you know, we have with so many relationships come and go, who are people I’m committed to? Who are people committed to me? How do I relate in this global village that we’re a part of? You know, we connect so easily. How do I manage my relationships? Then as, as I said, you know, and then the doing part, you know, again, we’ve got a world that’s got an abundance of choices, and how we spend our time what we can do. How do I sort of sift through all that and decide which of the things are most important to me? But you talk about someone who doesn’t have a faith. I think ultimately how the question is what am I living for? And Stephen Covey talks about four great needs of to live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy.

Sunil Raheja:
And I like the sense that all of us want to know that our lives matter at the end of the day. That we, we, we weren’t just here and then gone. And I think you need to have an internal perspective. Again, our secular world, in a sense, very much wants, is very much focused on this life and everything and this life. And I think the danger with that is, is that it, and I think we’re seeing that in society. It, it, it breeds a sense of meaninglessness about anything. Well, if this life is all there is, let me just get the most out of it. Let me do that in a way that doesn’t care about anybody else. That just pleases me. Because, you know, what eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we die. But I think that’s quite a tragic way to live really, and ultimately how life cannot make sense, I don’t think, without an infinite reference point. And I think it’s important that we explore that for ourselves

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah.

Sunil Raheja:
And ask those questions.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah, absolutely. Because I, this notion that we are so separate is just really, I think, at the core of so many of our problems, because I think if we, if we could really appreciate that we, underneath we are, we’re all the same. I mean, we’re all human beings, and, and I believe we’re all created you know, by, you know, whatever you wanna call it. But, you know, I call it God, that then that means that we are all connected . And, and this notion that we’re separate is just, you know, ludicrous. And it’s why we have so many problems. But if we were appreciating that we are connected, then we would take better care of one another and we’d take better care of our planet for sure. Let’s talk,

Sunil Raheja:
And also we, I think that, that we, that that we have longings as well, is, the other thing I would really say is that we have deep longings that, that nothing in this life ultimately fulfills, you know, you know, if you could tell our grandparents or great-grandparents the way that we live now, the things that we’ve got, the opportunities that we, what we’ve got, I mean, they would be just amazed. And they, they would say something along the lines of, you know, you must live in heaven in compared with what you can do. Yeah. And yet we know it’s, it’s, it’s far from heaven where we are because we are still underneath the same people with, with the same struggles, with the same insecurities, with the same self-doubt, you know, all all these things. Yeah. Because technology doesn’t solve those problems. It just, it just in a sense, extenuates them. It, it makes them, it just magnifies them.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. Mm. Yeah. I ask you a question. What, what is your, what is your definition of wisdom? Because you, you say your, your book is called Dancing with Wisdom. So what, how do you define wisdom?

Sunil Raheja:
Yeah. So it, it’s such a rich subject. I sort of think of it, if you think of it, the facets of the diamond, because you can look at it from many, so many different angles. But just giving some simple phrases of doing it. It’s the best means to the best end, or timeless truths that connect me to the best version of who I am and who I long to be. Ultimately, you know, wisdom is, is capability in the complexities of life where the rules don’t help. You know, there’s, in the Old Testament, there are, there are two proverbs ne next to each other. One says, answer a fool according to his folly, or he’ll be wise in his own eyes. And the very next proverb says, don’t answer a fool according to his folly. Or you’ll be like him.

Sunil Raheja:
So you’re in a meeting, somebody says something, which you think is outrageous that, that, that very first proverb says, tell that person it’s outrageous. And the very next one says, don’t say anything. Keep quiet. And the point is, you need wisdom to know, which is right, because it’s gonna depend on what the subject is. It’s gonna depend on the context. It’s gonna depend on, on how well, you know, the person depends on who else is there in the room. There’s so many variables that there is no textbook answer.. So that’s what, that’s why wisdom in sense is, is, is capability and the complexities of life where the rules don’t help. But it’s also much more than that because we come to wisdom because we come across a problem which we don’t quite know how to solve. We, we feel, we reach the end of our resources.

Sunil Raheja:
But I think the more we explore wisdom and the, and the deeper we go, and this is why I sort of talk about it like a diamond, is we find it, it’s richer and richer because it, it brings us to the very core of our being. Because ultimately it’s seeing that life doesn’t make sense. Where, as I said earlier on, without this infinite reference point and as, as someone who has a relationship with, with Christ, I learned that ultimately Jesus Christ, he is my wisdom. And a relationship with him actually brings me wisdom. So it’s not about getting more and more information or more knowledge, but it’s actually, it’s knowing him and having a relationship with him that I can actually grow in that wisdom. But that’s, that’s, that’s the full journey. Before, before we get there. We keep, as it were, bumping into reality and finding that we don’t have the resources to deal with the challenges that are in front of us. And so we realize actually we need outside help.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. Yeah. Cuz that is the, the ultimate challenge of it is because as you say, wisdom and knowledge are definitely not the same thing. And it’s, it’s I think maybe, I don’t know if I’ve heard, maybe said it sometimes, like applied knowledge, but

Sunil Raheja:
Yeah, that’s right. Knowledge plus experience is that knowledge plus experience is wisdom.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah.

Sunil Raheja:
And that’s, that’s in a very practical sense. Yeah. Like that. But, but then I think it gets bigger and bigger in terms of, cuz the purpose of wisdom, you know, again, again, you’re bringing another Hebrew word is the word shalom, which is this sort of multi-dimensional thriving. And so it’s whole. No. And one of the best definitions of of shalom that I’ve ever come across is wholeness of the whole person, or the whole of life extending to the whole of the cosmos. And you can’t really get more encompassing and comprehensive than that.

Gloria Grace Rand:
That’s True.

Sunil Raheja:
That’s ultimately the purpose of wisdom. To connect us with our creator and to understand how I fit in this world because we are so restless.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah.

Sunil Raheja:
You know, we, we, we, we question, what am I here? What am I doing? Am I making the most of my life? You know, we have that phrase, fomo, fear of missing out. Um we have books like a hundred things to do Before You Die. There’s this inner restlessness trying to Yeah. Trying to find, trying to make sense of it all right. Yeah.

Gloria Grace Rand:
I’m, I’m thinking, you know, that they say you get, you know, with with age comes wisdom, but not always . But, but I, but I think, I think it does help because I think it is that

Sunil Raheja:
Help if you’re open to it. I mean, I say yeah, there’s, there’s a, there’s a world of difference between 30 years of experience and one year of experience repeated 30 times. You don’t learn from it, you know, then you can, you, you, you are destined to keep on making the same mistakes. You know, we talk about this, I think in, you know, psychologists talk about this in terms of locus of control. If I have an internal locus of control on external locus of control, an internal locus of control is very much saying, okay, what am I responsible for? I focus on that. But if I’ve got an external locus of control, I blame the government, I blame the economy. I blame my spouse, I blame my, my boss. I, I’m always looking to, you know, which ultimately is foolish. It’s really, you know.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. Well, so how, how does one acquire wisdom?

Sunil Raheja:
Wow. Great question.

Gloria Grace Rand:
,

Sunil Raheja:
I think wisdom in a sense, it comes from making mistak, it comes from foolishness. And it’s recognizing that, that how foolish you’d been at times. Um there is a proverb it says in the Old Testament again, it says, fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And I think it’s not fear in the sense of being terrified, but it’s fear in the sense of a healthy respect and reverence for God and for life, and for the life that he’s given me, and for what he’s given me and what he hasn’t given me. Mm. And also ultimately realizing that actually there is a God, and I’m not him. I’m not ultimately the one who’s in charge. He’s the one in charge. And I, I realize that not with a sense of bitterness or anger, but with a sense of, okay, I don’t have all the answers, I don’t have all the wisdom.

Sunil Raheja:
I don’t know. And I need to trust that he does. And that he’s ultimately guiding and leading my life. And as I trust in him. And, you know, the best wi the best definition I came across of fear of the Lord is it’s, it’s a deep trembling joy and wonder that increases as I relate to God as he actually is not as I imagine him to be. So, you know, when we have a relationship with somebody, you know, say, say we’re married, you know, I mean, I I, I’ve been married for how long? Goodness. A long time. About 30, 30, 32 year. I’ll be 32 years actually this, this, this month. And the image I had of my wife when we got married 32 years ago, and the person I know now are very different people. Of course, we, we’ve changed over those 32 years.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Sure.

Sunil Raheja:
But the person I know before, I had sort, sort of fantasy in my head as to what she was like. And now I know the real person. The real person is much more interesting, much more delightful, much, much more real as it were, than than the picture I had in my head. And I think this is the same with God. We like to imagine him in certain ways. We think that, you know, he needs to do what I want to do. And then, then we get frustrated and angry cuz life doesn’t go the way that we expect or the way that we want. And I think wisdom is, is crossing that and holding that. And so ultimately it’s about that deepening relationship with God through Christ that, that Jesus gives us. Because one, one of the first things about wisdom as well is realising. I don’t have the answers. I don’t have the ability, the capability, I don’t have the resources. And that there is this big gap between God and me through my own sinfulness, through my own through my own, my own weaknesses, through my own negligence. And, but he’s made a way for me to come to him through Christ. And that way I can, I can grow in wisdom.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. And I know one of the things that I talk about in, in my book and when I work with clients is the importance of letting go and letting God into your life. And really, you know, and realizing that yeah. You don’t have all the answers. And cuz I in the past want all the answers I want. And, you know, and I’ve, I’ve wanted to be like fixed now, you know, and I’ve come to realize that that you know, life is a journey and there, and there’s always gonna be something that’s gonna come up. But, but to just let you know, to, to, to let trust, to trust and, and God, that God will provide the answers. And Yeah. And so,

Sunil Raheja:
And, and, and I suppose you need the wisdom to know, when do I let go and let God, and when do I actually move forward positively, almost aggressively to, you know, it’s having that wisdom. Cause sometimes we, we hold back, sometimes we move forward.

Gloria Grace Rand:
what,what’s a commonly held belief that you disagree with that maybe is about,you know, maybe about wisdom, even

Sunil Raheja:
Commonly held belief about wisdom that I disagree with? Well, actually, I, I talk about it in one of the chapters of my book about, I say in terms of developing wisdom, there are three, three main things really. It’s, it’s managing your ego, removing your idols, and challenging your assumptions. And one of the common, I think, beliefs that we have about wisdom is that if I live a, if I live with wisdom, that everything will go smoothly for me. I won’t have problems. I’ll somehow just coast through life, you know, with a sort of zen-like peace . Uand any problems and difficulties, they’ll just, they will, you know, they won’t disturb me and I’ll have this serenity and happiness and cheerfulness right through it. Well, unfortunately that’s not the case, you know, again, I think Yeah, Don, yeah. I just wish, I wish it was the case, but you know, again, if, if you look at Jesus, you look at his life.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah.

Sunil Raheja:
You know, I don’t think you could agree that anybody lived a wiser life and yet he caused, you know, his, his life, you know, caused a lot of negative reaction as well. He did an amazing amount of good, but he upset a lot of people as well. Particularly religious people.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah.

Sunil Raheja:
So I think that’s, that’s probably one of the biggest assumptions I think that, that if I walk even dance with wisdom as my book is called somehow or other, I’ll be, as it were, inoculated I’ll be impervious to, to the visitor, the problems, the difficulties of life. There’s no guarantees. But I think what the guarantee is, is that, is that God will be there to hold us and to, and to guide us and to strengthen us that, and he will provide a pathway through that. I think that, I think ultimately that one day will make sense. It may not make sense in this cycle, but one day it will.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah, absolutely. What are you curious about right now?

Sunil Raheja:
Wow. Got some good questions. , what am I curious about right now? I’m curious about how to, on a personal level is how do I integrate my fascination with wisdom, with my coaching, with helping more people? And how do I do that in a way that’s sustainable and that, cause you know, the more you, you know, as it were, the more you do, the more complicated your life can become. So how do I keep, as it were, a degree of simplicity, keeping the most important thing the most important. You know, keeping the main thing, the main thing,

Gloria Grace Rand:
Right.

Sunil Raheja:
Amidst all the other things that are happening as well. I think that’s the, that that’s one of the things that I think particularly in our world is so frenetic and so busy is, how do I slow down to deal with, with the complexity out there? That, that’s pretty why I’m, and I’m always, you know, and I’m always curious about what is God trying to teach me? What’s he trying to say to me? And I, and I love learning anyway, so I love reading and finding out about subjects and going on courses and things like that so that, that never finishes.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Mm-Hmm.

Sunil Raheja:
And I’m curious about people, I’m, I think in the sense that’s one of the things I think being a psychiatrist and a coach.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah.

Sunil Raheja:
Is that people are obviously fascinating and just so different. And yeah. And, and finding out about more about them and finding out ways maybe that I can help them and support them, those are things that I’m curious about.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. and I just, it just occurred to me, cause I mentioned in your bio that you’re a podcaster, so do you, you interview people on your podcast as well?

Sunil Raheja:
Yes, yes. No, I do. Yeah. So yeah, it’s, it’s called, it’s called One Surprise Surprise, it’s called the Dancing With with Wisdom podcast. It was called A Making Sense of Life podcast, actually. Which is again, is maybe a good definition of wisdom as well, making sense of life. Um and yeah, I’ve been doing it for, for for a few years. Usually only about once a month. and,yeah, again, book authors. Interesting people who’ve done interesting things

Sunil Raheja:
Very similar to you, I think a Gloria as well. Yeah,

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. Yeah. Cuz that, that’s how I was thinking cuz it’s, I, I know, I enjoy meeting new people and learning about them and, and like you, I love to learn and love to, to read and I’m always finding especially like reading new spiritual books and getting different perspectives on, on how to live life and how to really you know, create a life that is worth living now and, and to create a legacy as well. Cause I think that is something that as we get older, we start thinking about more and more and, you know, yes. What is, how, how do we wanna be remembered when, when we’re not living on this life anymore.

Sunil Raheja:
Um absolutely.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. Is there anything else that I didn’t ask you about that you think would be worthwhile for our audience to know about wisdom or handling, handling life right now?

Sunil Raheja:
Yeah, I mean, I suppose in the book what I’m really talking about there, there are three questions I think that that, that really, so that, that are really sort of fascinate me, continue to fascinate me and I’m continue to be curious about. The first is why is it some people in that can, can really thrive in life? You know, why do we, you know, have people like Steve Jobs or an Elon Musk or somebody like that, you know, who, or a Bill Gates, you know, who, who see a situation and can really develop it, you know again, I think Jesus talks about that in terms of a harvest 10, 20, 100 times, what was sown, why can be some be so incredibly productive. But then there’s a remnant of those people who are not just productive, but they’re able to, as it were, developing their character as well and their relationships, they’re able to bring those along with them.

Sunil Raheja:
So, so often what we, what we see is that success in one area comes at a cost in another area. So what, what is it that me that means that some people can actually, as it were, keep everything together, you know?

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah.

Sunil Raheja:
Uh keep the relationships intact, keep their health intact, keep keep their own their own godliness intact and character. And how does such people think and behave that’s different from the rest of us. Those are the things that really fascinate me. And in many, many ways that that’s what the book is an exploration of. It’s about creating a case for saying you know, you think, you know, you need a new job, you need a new relationship, you need more money. You know, and that may be valid, but actually what you actually need is, is, is wisdom. And that’s what you need to hunger and thirst for.

Sunil Raheja:
And so I created a case for desiring wisdom. And, and the book was really in the context as well of a theme that runs through. It was, I had a good friend of mine who died at the age of 32, quite suddenly back in 2014. And his sudden death really, really rocks my world and made me really think, you know, what am I living for? What really matters to me? And that’s a theme that goes to the book. And so this is issue about desiring wisdom, wisdom for the heart, the emotional wisdom for the mind, the intellectual and wisdom for life. And in that chapter I talk very much about the world we live in and, and the, and the problems, you know, for a psychiatrist you know, depression, anxiety, right? Suicide, stress, burnout, loneliness, these problems that we have because we lack wisdom.

Sunil Raheja:
And then developing wisdom, managing your ego, removing your idols, changing your assumptions, and then deepening in wisdom. And there’s a whole chapter on defining wisdom with divine those four vital questions I talked about for being, relating, doing and leaving. Then your wisdom quest and then your next best step. That’s, that’s, that’s in a sense of a synopsis of, of, of where the book goes to help us ultimately dance with wisdom. Because, you know, again, that’s giving life to the full with a jest and energy. Joyfulness and a delight, really, which I think we know, which we all hunger and yearn for.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it sounds wonderful and I, I, I wish I had a chance to read it beforehand, but I’m definitely gonna get it now so I can make sure I can, I can read it, read it, and, and learn about how to dance with wisdom. And I know that our listeners out there probably would love to be able to get copy of it as well. So how can.

Sunil Raheja:
Yes.

Gloria Grace Rand:
How can people get it and and also stay, get connected with you.

Sunil Raheja:
Thank you. Yes. Well, well it’s, it’s, it’s available on, on Amazon, it’s in Kindle. The audiobook is on, on Audible is there as well. You can get it with me at doctor sunil dot com. That’s d r S U N I L.com. Yeah, those, those are probably the, the best, best places to

Gloria Grace Rand:
Excellent. Well, I’ll be sure and have all of that information in the show notes. So thank you so much for spending some time with us today, and I really appreciate you.

Sunil Raheja:
It’s a pleasure. And just say there is a companion guide you can get from the website. I should’ve said it was just, if you go to drsunil.com/workbook, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a complimentary workbook, which you, that, that sort of goes to the book and it’s, it’s standalone as well. Cause you know, cause I think when I wrote the book, I wrote it in a sense to be as open and transparent about their own cha my own challenges. But then it gives the reader permission to think about their own life and what it means for them to dance with wisdom.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Oh, excellent. All right, well I’ll make sure I have that in the show notes as well then. So to let people get there, hands on that workbook. So that’s excellent. So thank you again for being with us, or.

Sunil Raheja:
Oh, thank you Gloria.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Appreciate it.

Sunil Raheja:
It’s real privilege to doing you. Thank you so much for opportunity.

Gloria Grace Rand:
Yeah. And I wanna thank all of you out there for listening and for watching. And I’ve got a cat trying to climb up on my lap in the moment , but he’s not going to disturb us. And so if you did get some value out of today’s episode, oh, there he is on my lap now. I hope that you will share it with a friend and make sure that you’re subscribed to the podcast and, and also on my YouTube channel at Gloria Grace Rand. And until next time, as always, I encourage you to go out and live fully, love deeply, and engage authentically.