🎙️ Diary of a CEO: The Most Replayed Moment - 6 Daily Habits That Expose Your Fake Values with Deepak Chopra

🎙️ Diary of a CEO: The Most Replayed Moment - 6 Daily Habits That Expose Your Fake Values with Deepak Chopra

A Profound Exploration of Suffering, Identity, and the Path to Authentic Living

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In one of the most replayed moments from the Diary of a CEO podcast, Steven Bartlett engages in a mind-expanding conversation with Deepak Chopra that transcends typical self-help advice. The discussion delves into the nature of suffering, identity, and the daily habits that reveal our true values versus those we merely profess to hold. Deepak Chopra, renowned physician and spiritual teacher, shares profound insights on how to move beyond being what he calls "biological robots" to living with authentic awareness and creativity.

The Nature of Suffering and Awareness

The conversation begins with a powerful exploration of suffering and how to transcend it. Chopra explains that suffering is not inherent in experiences themselves but in our resistance to them. "So what we call stress is resistance to existence in the moment, okay? If you don't resist experience in the moment, you know, it's passing by."

This perspective challenges our conventional understanding of suffering. When faced with difficult situations such as losing a job or experiencing loss, our suffering comes not from the event itself but from our resistance to it. Resistance creates stress. “Stress is resistance to existence in the moment.”

We have imagination to look in the past or the future and imagine it. We escape the present in the imagination. The worst use of imagination is stress and the best use is creativity.

Chopra suggests that the solution lies not in changing our mindset but in shifting our awareness: "The awareness of the mind is not the mind. Who is it that or what is it that knows a thought? That is what you need to shift to."

This shift in awareness creates a profound separation between our true self and our experiences. As Bartlett reflects during the conversation, "It feels almost like I'm stepping out of myself and looking at myself," to which Chopra responds, "Correct. Looking at the projection of yourself. You're looking at the projection of yourself."

The Avatar vs. The True Self

One of the most compelling concepts discussed is the idea that we increasingly confuse ourselves with our avatars, especially in the age of social media. Chopra explains, "So we don't know who we are. You confuse yourself with the avatar. And the battle is all between avatars wanting importance."

This avatar is the curated identity we present to the world, often defined by our followers, achievements, and social status. The problem arises when we mistake this projection for our true self, leading to endless competition and suffering as our avatars battle for significance.

Chopra's solution to this dilemma is profound in its simplicity: "Actually, the opposite of that is creativity." Rather than getting caught in the battle of avatars, we can transcend it through authentic creativity, which he describes as "a disruption in the algorithm" of our conditioned responses. Every moment we have the choice to repeat the past or to be a pioneer of creativity of the future.

Creativity as Freedom from the Algorithm

Chopra presents a revolutionary view of creativity as the antidote to living as a "biological robot" or algorithm. He distinguishes between mere innovation and fundamental creativity: "Creativity is a death and a resurrection. It's a death of context, meaning, relationship and story, and a new meaning, relationship and story."

This type of creativity is not about incremental improvements but about paradigm shifts, whether in science, art, or personal life. It represents a break from our conditioned patterns and opens the possibility of genuine freedom. As Chopra explains, "Every moment you have a choice to repeat the past or be a pioneer of creativity of the future."

The conversation reveals that this creativity is accessible to everyone and serves as a powerful way to step outside the algorithmic patterns that govern much of human behavior. By choosing creativity over determinism, we reclaim our agency and authenticity.

The Five Points of Suffering and Their Solution

Chopra outlines five fundamental points of suffering that plague human existence:

Remarkably, he suggests that all these forms of suffering share a single solution: "First one, find out who you are." This simple yet profound directive points to the core of spiritual and psychological liberation: knowing one's true nature beyond the temporary constructs of identity.

When Bartlett asks how one might discover who they truly are, Chopra's answer is direct: "Transcendence." This transcendence involves moving beyond systems of thought, whether religious, philosophical, or scientific, to directly experience the awareness that gives rise to all thoughts and experiences.

Six Daily Habits for Authentic Living

The conversation culminates with Chopra sharing six daily habits that can help cultivate awareness, health, and authentic living:

1. Prioritize Sleep

Chopra emphasizes that "lack of sleep is the number one predictor of premature death from cardiovascular disease." Beyond physical health, lack of sleep also impairs creativity, increases inflammation, and contributes to Alzheimer's risk. Quality sleep is foundational to both physical and mental well-being.

2. Quiet the Mind

The second habit involves practices that quieten the mind, such as meditation, reflection, contemplation, or simply sitting quietly and watching one's breath. These practices help cultivate the awareness that Chopra identifies as essential to transcending suffering.

3. Exercise Regularly

Physical exercise is the third habit Chopra recommends. Regular movement supports overall health and helps counteract the sedentary lifestyle that characterizes modern existence.

4. Practice Mind-Body Coordination

Beyond regular exercise, Chopra emphasizes practices that coordinate mind and body, such as yoga, martial arts, breathing practices, Tai Chi, or Qigong. These "activate a different part of your nervous system, which is the parasympathetic nervous system, which causes self-regulation in the body." This distinction is crucial, as these practices do more than just move the body; they create integration between mind and body.

5. Cultivate Healthy Environments

The fifth habit involves being mindful of one's emotional, physical, and social environment. As Chopra notes, "if you have toxic relationships, it's going to cause physical toxicity." Our social connections and surroundings significantly impact our well-being, making it essential to cultivate healthy relationships and environments.

6. Nourish Properly

Nutrition is the sixth habit Chopra highlights. He advises against "refined, manufactured, processed food with chemicals, antibiotics, hormones, insecticides, pesticides," comparing such foods to "putting Agent Orange in your body." Instead, he recommends organic, farm-to-table foods with maximum diversity of plant-based options.

The Power of Wonder and Innocence

Toward the end of the conversation, Chopra touches on what he considers the healthiest emotion one can experience: "It's not love. It's not compassion. It's not even joy. It's awe. It's wonder." This sense of wonder (being perpetually surprised by the fact that we exist and are aware of our existence) connects us to the innocence we often lose as adults.

Chopra shares a poignant example of observing a baby on a train who was "looking around in total amazement" and smiling, lighting up the entire room. This innocence, he suggests, is our natural state: one we lose as we become conditioned by society and our own thought patterns.

When asked how to reclaim this innocence and joy, Chopra's answer is simple yet profound: "play, play, not drama." He distinguishes between play and drama, explaining that true play is when we find creativity and joy for their own sake, not for any external reward or outcome. This state of play (whether in music, sports, or any activity) creates transcendence: "When the music and the musician become one, when the knower and the known become one, when the observer and the observed become one, when the lover and the beloved become one, that's transcendence. That's joy. That's play."

The Path to Authentic Living

Throughout the conversation, Chopra returns to the importance of self-awareness as the foundation for authentic living. When asked what change he would make if he could lead the world, his response is telling: "I would say an education that does not sacrifice self-awareness. We have information overload right now. I don't need information overload. I can Google it or now go to ChatGPT or something like that. What I need to know is who am I?"

This emphasis on self-awareness over information accumulation challenges the priorities of our current education systems and cultural values. Chopra suggests that without self-awareness, all other achievements are hollow, leading to what he observes in many entrepreneurs: "they're talking about exit strategy before they started the business. It's like dividing the loot before there's a train to rob, but they're already talking and we're living in a hustle culture."

Instead of this endless hustle, Chopra advocates for making "joy and self-understanding, self-awareness, the fundamental purpose of existence and everything else will follow."

Conclusion: Beyond Fake Values to Authentic Being

This conversation between Steven Bartlett and Deepak Chopra presents a fundamental reorientation toward life and living. The six daily habits discussed are not merely productivity hacks but pathways to authentic existence beyond the "fake values" that often govern our lives.

Chopra's insights invite us to question who we truly are beneath our avatars, to transcend the algorithmic patterns that govern much of our behavior, and to reclaim the wonder and innocence that are our birthright. In a world that increasingly values productivity over presence and achievement over awareness, this conversation serves as a powerful reminder that the most valuable thing we can develop is not our external success but our internal awareness.

As Chopra beautifully summarizes, the essential message is: "if you're not joyful, you wasted your life." This joy comes not from external achievements but from the profound realization of who we truly are. Beyond our avatars, beyond our suffering, and beyond the fake values that so often dominate our existence.

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