July 7, 2025 • 30 mins
Have you found yourself constantly distracted? Or your mind is racing from one idea to the next?Our guest today is Dr. Ravi Iyer, and he shares with us why this happens and how to help understand it. He talks about how each of us is a meaning making machine trying to make sense of the world around us.
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- Website: https://www.driyer.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IyerClinicMD/
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Dr. Ravi Iyer, MD, TEDx speaker, author, coach, and President of Reston Towncenter Toastmasters Club, is a renowned expert in personal and professional transformation. As CEO of IR FocalPoint, Iyer Clinic, and ActivPower Inc., he helps high-achieving individuals, including C-suite executives, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and athletes, unlock their full potential through mastery of inner silence. His acclaimed programs, such as “Art of Living Leadership” and “Cognitive Alignment Workshop,” empower clients to break free from limiting patterns, achieve clarity, and cultivate purpose-driven lives. Specializing in 2 of 2 rapid mindset shifts, Dr. Iyer guides individuals from a consumer mindset to a creator’s perspective, enabling decisive action and freedom from mental clutter. As a podcast guest, Dr. Iyer delivers actionable insights on mental clarity, work-life balance, and aligning life with core values, inspiring listeners to embrace change and achieve deeper fulfillment and success.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tom DuFore (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply your Success podcast,
where, each week, we helpgrowth-minded entrepreneurs and
franchise leaders take the nextstep in their expansion journey.
I'm your host, tom Dufour, ceoof Big Sky Franchise Team, and
as we open today, I'm wonderingif you have ever found yourself
being distracted or maybe you'reconstantly distracted or have
(00:21):
you found yourself where yourmind is racing from one idea to
the next and the next?
Well, our guest today is DrRavi Iyer, and he shares with us
why this happens and how tohelp understand it.
He talks about how each of usis a meaning-making machine
trying to make sense of theworld around us.
(00:42):
Now, dr Iyer is a medicaldoctor, a TEDx speaker, he's an
author, a coach, he's thepresident of his Toastmasters
Club and is a renowned expert inpersonal and professional
transformation.
As CEO of Iyer, focal Point,iyer Clinic and Active Power Inc
.
He helps high-achievingindividuals, including C-suite
(01:03):
executives, entrepreneurs,celebrities and athletes, unlock
their full potential throughmastery of inner silence.
His acclaimed programs, such asArt of Living, leadership and
Cognitive Alignment Workshop,empower clients to break free
from their limiting patterns,achieve clarity and cultivate
purpose-driven lives.
Specializing in two rapidmindset shifts, dr Iyer guides
(01:25):
individuals from a consumermindset to a creator's
perspective.
You're going to love thisinterview.
This one is so full of justprofound, deep statements and
deep thinking.
You might even want to listento this one again.
So let's go ahead and jumpright into my interview with Dr
Ravi Iyer.
Thank you so much for beinghere, and one of the things that
(01:53):
I was really interested inlearning about and having you
share with me and with ouraudience here is just this idea
about how eliminating mentalclutter can unlock greater
clarity and focus and reallyproductivity, especially for
high achievers, and I thinkespecially in high achievers
they think well, I've achievedso much, I've figured out a way
to work with that, but there'sstill that mental chatter and so
(02:16):
on.
Dr. Ravi Iyer (02:16):
So I'd love for you to maybe just start there
for us this ability to isolateyourself from the mental chatter
is a capacity that exists foreveryone.
Like anything else, it's amuscle that needs to be
exercised and if you don'texercise it it diminishes in its
(02:37):
power and it atrophies, but itnever disappears.
It just means that if you havenot done the work, then at some
point, when you begin to do thework, initially you will find it
hard going and then eventuallyyou'll get better and better at
it and more easy.
But if you analyze the way youand I live our lives, we have
(03:00):
five sense organs eyes, ears,nose, tongue, taste buds, skin,
the sense of touch that allow usto interact with our
environment.
So our environment literallycontacts these five senses and
gives input in terms ofstimulation to our five senses,
(03:28):
gives input in terms ofstimulation to our five senses.
Photons strike our eye, give uscolor and light.
Molecules fall upon our tongue,give us taste.
A molecule drifts up our nose,gives us a smell of a flower,
wind molecules or air moleculesstrike our eardrums, giving us
sound.
Other molecules strike our skin, giving us touch.
Now, out of these, sensorystimulation.
(03:49):
This sensory stimulation is ourreal experience.
But coupled with thatexperience is a meaning-making
machine that we all are and wemake meanings out of stimulation
that strike us.
For example, you see somethingred and a meaning pops up Apple.
(04:13):
You smell a flower and ameaning pops up Nice or not?
So there is a meaning that popsup.
The meaning is separate fromthe experience.
The experience has no meaning.
It is you who give the meaning,and this is the reason why the
(04:36):
same experience is handleddifferently by different people
by different people.
So one person will get stressedout by a certain set of
experiences because of themeanings he gives it.
Another person does not getstressed out from the same set
of experience because of themeanings they give.
Now, the meaning-making machinethat we are has a very simple
(04:58):
principle the meaning-makingmachine has only one purpose and
its purpose is survival.
The meaning-making machineexists and makes meanings so
that it can put a certain valueon our experience, and it makes
a value and decides whether thisvalue is favorable or
(05:20):
unfavorable to you.
So the purpose of themeaning-making machine is to
constantly position yourselfinto situations that are
favorable for you and toconstantly avoid situations that
are unfavorable to you.
So, for example, a thorn pricksyour skin and there is a
(05:41):
stimulation, but thatstimulation is experienced by
your meaning-making machine asunpleasant and the reaction is I
move my finger away.
But the next time you see apointy object you will move the
finger away before it touchesyou.
And then your reaction is nowdetermined by the meaning you
(06:03):
made by your previous encounterwith that pointy object.
So your response today isdetermined by your past
experience.
So like this I just took oneexample.
But imagine layer upon layerupon layer of complexity in our
meaning-making machine that formthe prison walls of our life,
(06:26):
such that life shows up to usonly within the filter of our
meaning-making machine.
Now, some people are fortunate.
They grew up in an environmentwhere the meanings they made
were a little more expansive, alittle more less restrictive and
more opportunistic, andtherefore they have lives full
(06:49):
of opportunity, pleasure.
And other people grew up insituations where their past
created meanings that wererestrictive, that were defining,
that were fearful, that werelimiting in their definitions
and therefore the rest of theirlife.
Their future shows up aslimiting and definite and
defining themselves.
(07:10):
But regardless whether it isthe first person who has a more
expansive meaning-making machineor another person who has a
more restrictive meaning-makingmachine, they are both
functioning within a prison wall.
The only difference is thisguy's courtyard is only so big
and that guy's courtyard is huge, and the time this guy the time
(07:32):
the successful guy is spendingin the courtyard is more.
The time that this unsuccessfulperson is spending in the
courtyard of his life is less,and therefore they experience,
but both of them are limited bytheir meanings.
So when you deal with verysuccessful people, they
initially enjoy the vast freedomof their courtyard until they
(07:55):
bump up and say, hey, wait aminute, I don't care how big my
courtyard is, there's still aboundary wall and this boundary
wall prevents me from reallyexpanding and experiencing life.
And they don't know that theboundary wall and this boundary
wall prevents me from reallyexpanding and experiencing life.
And they don't know that theboundary wall was their own
meaning-making machine.
And I show them thatmeaning-making machine is not
who they are.
(08:16):
It is like.
I'll give you an example.
This lesson was taught to me atthe age of 22.
And the person who taught methis lesson was a monk in a
monastery.
I visited that monastery andthis monk and he asked me a
simple question.
He said did you have a bowelmovement today?
And I said yeah, I did.
I got up this morning.
(08:36):
I had a good bowel movement.
He said yeah.
I said okay, when you had thatbowel movement, after you had
that bowel movement, did youreally spend time inspecting and
playing with your excreta?
I said no and I was wonderingwhere the conversation was going
.
And he said your digestivesystem takes in food and it
(08:58):
converts that food into usefulproducts for your body, and one
of the products that converts itis excreta.
And the excreta has a purpose.
The purpose is to get out ofyour body, just like the blood
that your digestive system makeshas a purpose, that is, to
circulate in your body.
Like that, he said, your braintakes in your stimulus from your
(09:21):
five senses and converts itinto hopes and dreams and plans
and fears and wishes and all themeanings of your life.
He said they are just likeexcreta.
You are not.
He said you are not the excretathat your body makes.
(09:42):
You are not the meaning thatyour body makes.
You are the capacity to perceivelife.
Once you understand that you arethe pure awareness of life, the
capacity to actually beavailable to these senses, then
(10:03):
you decide which meaning wantsto come up.
You recognize that the body willthrow up meanings, but once you
shift your identity from beingthe meaning-making machine to
being the receiver of theproducts of the meaning-making
machine.
Then as a receiver, you canchoose to receive or not receive
(10:27):
.
You know everybody goes aroundand says, oh, sticks and stones
may break my bones, but wordscannot hit you know, that kind
of thing Does that really shiftyou?
It doesn't help you, no matterhow much you say, because you
believe that those words are themeanings that you are, until
you actually shift your position, your identity, into the space
(10:51):
where these meanings pop up,where you see these meanings,
like the excreta that comes out,like the byproducts of your
digestive system that comes out,and some of the byproducts are
useful, some of them are not.
Some of them are fragrant andsome of them are not fragrant.
(11:13):
You can pick and choose, whichapplies to the position of your
life at this moment, becausethen you see yourself as the
user of the meanings, not as thevictim of your meanings.
Tom DuFore (11:28):
That is very profound in how you explain that
.
That is very profound in howyou explain that To that point
and as you've described that,what are some common patterns or
things that you see in businessleaders, successful individuals
or just maybe people in generalthat you see where they are
taking in this information andmaybe they're not recognizing
(11:50):
what you said, where they get tochoose right, they can choose
if they recognize that.
So what are some commonlimiting patterns that you see
there?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (11:58):
So the essence of ability to recognize is the
ability to make a distinction.
When there is no distinction,there can be no recognition.
All right, that's important.
So the problem that people haveis they don't have distinctions
, they don't know.
I'll give you an example In theKalahari Desert there is the
Kalahari bush pygmy.
Now, the Kalahari bush pygmycan know from a dimple in the
(12:23):
sand a little bit of slightdepression in the sand.
He can know what kind ofcreature created that, he can
know its size, its age, he canknow what it was pursuing and he
can know a whole lot ofinformation from just a dimple.
(12:44):
For me, that is nothing.
For me it is just sand, becauseI don't have the distinction of
that, because I don't have thedistinction of that.
So when people live their lifein the meaning-making machine,
imagine if you were to go to arestaurant and you sit down and
instead of eating the meal, youeat the menu that describes the
(13:06):
meal.
The meaning-making machine isthe menu of life.
The meal of life is actuallybeing present to experience.
Now I'll give you afive-year-old child walks out
into the lawn and he finds astick.
The five-year-old child doesnot have a meaning for the stick
.
So that stick now can be somany different things.
(13:29):
It can be a sword, it can be aspear, it can be a Robin Hood
staff, it can be a bow, it canbe a spear, it can be a Robin
Hood staff, it can be a bow, itcan be an arrow, it can be so
many different things.
And for a fire old that stickis a source of wonder because of
all the possibilities that thestick exists.
Then somewhere along the waythat fire old decides that the
(13:52):
stick is a sword and from thatpoint onwards every stick in
that fire old's life can only bea sword.
So the problem is, by the timeyou are become an adult, you no
longer you've forgotten how itis to experience.
You live your life by thedefinitions of your
(14:14):
meaning-making machine and thereis very little joy there, just
like there is very little tastein eating the menu.
There's no flavor there.
What people do to experience toactually break themselves out of
their prison of theirmeaning-making machine is they
try to shake things up.
(14:35):
They go on a vacation, go tosome place where they've never
been before, where the oldmeanings don't make sense
anymore, and suddenly they feelexpansive, they feel experienced
, and they mistake that theythink that that freedom, that
joy, that excitement that theyexperience can only be had by
going on a vacation to Bora Boraor Timbuktu, or go on a hike to
(15:00):
Everest Base Camp orKilimanjaro, or do themselves up
with a drug, that they are ableto actually break out of their
meaning-making machines andactually go back into experience
, when they could have that bysimply sitting in the backyard,
(15:23):
because it's fundamentallyexperience.
Right, you can have that sittingin a chair, but if you realize
that it is you who are theawareness that experiences, in
whose awareness, in the space ofyour awareness, the
meaning-making machine pops upmeanings, hurricane winds of
(15:55):
your meaning and you can pickand choose which meaning you
want to give as the direction ofyour this minute or this
instant or this hour or this dayor this year, you can choose
the direction of your life.
That's number one.
Number two the reason whypeople don't know this is
because they never practicedexperience.
And when they do experiencelife, they experience it by
(16:19):
accident, not by intention.
And because it is accidentalexperience, their ability to get
it again and again is alsoaccidental again and again is
also accidental.
Tom DuFore (16:36):
How might someone go from this accident to being
more intentional about findingthis purpose or fulfillment?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (16:40):
really, it sounds like so when you want to go and
build let's say you wanted tobuild your biceps and you build
your lats and build a six-packabdomen.
What do you do?
You go to a gym.
You go to a gym, you sit downat a machine and you work those
(17:01):
group of muscles.
You do a lat pull or you do abicep curl or you do abdominal
crunches or something like that.
Right, but each is a specificset of exercises and there is
equipment, there is place,location and there's a
commitment of time and energy.
Equipment there is place,location and there's a
commitment of time and energyLike that to develop the ability
to stand apart from themeaning-making machine.
You need to set time and youneed to participate and do some
(17:24):
exercises that get you intofocusing upon experience.
You can do it by some people.
The Japanese do the focus of atea ceremony.
That is actually anexperiential ceremony where the
meaning-making machine is shutoff and you are experiencing the
(17:45):
elegance and the art form ofmaking a cup of tea and serving
it in a very precise way andyour entire attention is focused
on rubbing it.
Everything is attention.
A person goes into a yogaposition and goes
breath-watching.
It's all experience.
It is all exercises inexperiential awareness,
(18:11):
dissociating yourself from thespace of your meaning-making
machine and going back and moreinto its experience.
And you can do this at any time.
You can do this driving yourcar.
Drive your car and payattention to everything on the
road instead of the chatter inyour mind about where you're
going.
(18:31):
Find out if you can go into aZen zone while driving your car.
When you're picking up a book,read the letters in a way where
you actually experience the inkon the paper.
See, people don't do thosethings.
When you're writing let us sayyou write your name on a piece
(18:54):
of paper experience the curl ofyour finger, the way the ink
flows, the curve of the letters,the flourish and the end and
(19:21):
the next, until you fill a pageof beautifully formed letters
where the entire exercise, youhave been totally attentive to
the flow of letters rather thansome chatter.
You can pay attention and whenyou stand before somebody and
you are paying attention,there's something magical
happens.
You gain control in thatperson's attention and your
(19:48):
ability to pay attention shutsoff that person's meaning-making
machine and that personexperiences expansion in your
presence.
Imagine as a CEO you're talkingto somebody, you're talking to
a board member and you aregiving so much attention that
that person feels empoweredbecause you shut off his
(20:09):
meaning-making machine that wasimprisoning him by the force of
your attention.
And that's what happens whenyour muscle is sufficiently
powerful.
Tom DuFore (20:18):
How can someone find out more about what you're
doing?
Get in touch with you.
What's the best way for them to?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (20:24):
do that.
Just come to my website,wwwdriyercom.
You can get me there If youpunch in my name.
I'm a public trigger done threeTEDx talks Next week.
There's going to be a Wikipediapage on me, I guess, so you can
(20:45):
find me.
Tom DuFore (20:47):
Great Well, and we'll make sure we include that
in the show notes so peopleconnect to you here.
Dr Iyer, this is a great timein the show we make a transition
and we ask every guest the samefour questions before they go.
And the first question is haveyou had a miss or two on your
journey and something youlearned from it?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (21:02):
Yeah, many years ago, 1970, 75 or 76, I nearly
failed in university.
I couldn't get into medicalschool because of my grades, and
I finally built myself up fromthat point.
So that was a pretty intensepoint in my life where I was
(21:27):
pretty beaten down by judgmentof, by the conversations and
meanings that were there.
I was barely 18 or 19.
I was 18 years old.
That was exactly when Idiscovered that I am not the
meaning making machine but theawareness in which the meanings
(21:49):
pop up, and that these meaningsthat were defining the course of
my life were only a temporaryopinion and they have only as
much power as I make thempersist.
And I just took a 100% shiftfrom there and from that point
onwards I didn't look back.
Tom DuFore (22:10):
Fantastic.
Well, thank you for sharingthat.
And how about a make ahighlight or two that you can
share?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (22:16):
The biggest highlight was actually that
pivotal point because thattransformed everything.
But from there my career tookoff from that point.
From there I went to All IndiaInstitute, the best medical
school in the country, got mydoctoral degree, went to Harvard
.
So it's been a series ofhighlights.
From there, the biggesthighlight in my life was meeting
(22:40):
the woman I ended up marrying.
That pretty much gave me forthe first time in my life a
sheltered space where I could.
I could stand and actuallysally forth from my wife became
my my fort, my space, and everysuccess emerged out of that.
Tom DuFore (23:05):
Thank you for sharing.
Well, and how about amultiplier?
The name of the show isMultiply your Success.
Have you used a multiplier togrow yourself, personally or
professionally, all the time?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (23:16):
So I have multiple companies and they all
feed in on the same commonprinciple and they work off each
other.
But even most recently, my TEDxtalk that I gave in October,
but even most recently my TEDxtalk that I gave in October it
went viral.
Right now it's having over 2.2million views in less than four
months.
And the multiplier in that casewas I wrote a book about my
(23:44):
journey to the TED stage and thebook drove the talk and the
talk drove the book, drove thetalk and the talk drove the book
.
So they bounced back and forthin a very synergistic virtuous
cycle that completely explodedits performance.
And that's just one example.
My life is full of multipliers.
I multiply all the time.
I always use somethingconnected.
(24:07):
So human connection is thebiggest multiplier.
When you are able to makesomething that you do become an
empowering feature in somebodyelse's life, that person will
automatically take what you doand amplify it.
So contributing to otherpeople's life is the biggest
(24:30):
multiplier, because when youcontribute it doesn't go off
into the ether and get wasted,because that contribution, that
person who gets contributed,wants more of it.
So they will take yourcontribution and expand and
deliver it out.
Tom DuFore (24:46):
And the final question, dr Iyer, that we ask
every guest is what does successmean to you?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (24:52):
Success means to me the ability to empower the
maximum number of people in thespan of my life that I can
possibly get.
That is my definition ofsuccess.
I believe that no one needs tospend even one second in a
wasted conversation or a wastedmeaning that deprives them of
(25:18):
the possibilities of their life.
Create the space whereineveryone who comes in contact
with me can experience anexpansion in the possibilities
that are available to them.
Tom DuFore (25:36):
Dr Iyer, thank you so much for a fantastic
interview and let's go ahead andjump into today's three key
takeaways.
So takeaway number one is whenhe talked about the
meaning-making machine has onepurpose and that's survival.
I thought that was a greatrecognition and that leads to
takeaway number two.
(25:56):
And takeaway number two is whenhe said the essence to
recognize is the ability to makea distinction, and if there's
no distinction, there is norecognition.
I thought that was a greatlittle takeaway, just to start
thinking about what he's tryingto say and communicate, about
recognizing as an example thatyou are and I am and we are
(26:21):
these meaning-making machinesthat he describes.
Which then leads to takeawaynumber three, which is when he
gave that great analogy aboutsitting at a restaurant and
imagine eating the menu at arestaurant instead of eating the
meal, and he said themeaning-making machine in all of
(26:42):
us is like eating the menu.
So he said the meaning-makingmachine is the menu of life, the
meaning of life is actuallybeing present to experience.
And so, to tie it back to hisanalogy, I think it's taking a
look at saying well, the meaningmaking machine in all of us
would be the like eating themenu lack of flavor not very
(27:07):
enjoyable versus the beingpresent to experience would be
actually reading the menu,placing an order and eating the
meal and being present in thatmoment.
And now it's time for today'swin-win.
So today's win-win came fromwhen he seemed to summarize all
(27:30):
of these pieces together and howyou can apply this not only for
yourself, but how you can helpcreate an environment for
someone else to eliminate thisdistraction.
And he said your ability to payattention shuts off the other
person's meaning making machine,which allows you to connect
(27:51):
with that person by payingattention.
I thought that was fantastic.
So when you give someone yourundivided attention, especially
in today's world where it's soeasy we all have access to our
cell phones and computers anddistractions and people needing
things from you, especially asthe leader and entrepreneur of
your business it's easy to getdistracted.
(28:14):
But when you can be focused andintentional in that moment with
that other person, you shutdown their meaning-making
machine, which allows them toconnect and for you to connect
with them, and that cuts out thenoise and distraction that
other person has and creates asafe environment, which means
that a person is going tointernalize and instinctively
(28:35):
want more of that.
Which I thought was great.
He gave a great example of thiswhere he said the biggest
highlight of his life wasmeeting the woman he ended up
marrying and she gave him thatsheltered space, and so I think
this is an example of thatattention that he's talking
about.
His wife has provided him thesafe fort as he described it,
(28:58):
and every success that he hashad has emerged out of that.
So I just thought that was agreat great summary here and
what Dr Iyer shared about whathis wife has been able to mean
to him.
It just reminds me, as the timeof this recording, brian Wilson
, the main founder and leadsongwriter for the Beach Boys,
(29:18):
passed away, and one of myfavorite songs of all time is
God Only Knows.
And boy.
It's just a great summary tothink about how that might apply
to what Dr Iyer was talkingabout with his wife.
And maybe it applies to you.
God only knows what I'd bewithout you, and who might that
be for you in your life and whomight you be that for in someone
(29:40):
else's life who might bethinking that about you Might be
a good way to ponder and thinkabout.
And so that's our episode today.
Folks, please make sure yousubscribe to the podcast and
give us a review and remember ifyou or anyone you know might be
ready to franchise theirbusiness or take their franchise
company to the next level.
Please connect with us atBigSkyFranchiseTeamcom.
Thanks for tuning in and welook forward to having you back
(30:01):
next week.
Welcome to the Multiply your Success podcast,
where, each week, we helpgrowth-minded entrepreneurs and
franchise leaders take the nextstep in their expansion journey.
I'm your host, tom Dufour, ceoof Big Sky Franchise Team, and
as we open today, I'm wonderingif you have ever found yourself
being distracted or maybe you'reconstantly distracted or have
(00:21):
you found yourself where yourmind is racing from one idea to
the next and the next?
Well, our guest today is DrRavi Iyer, and he shares with us
why this happens and how tohelp understand it.
He talks about how each of usis a meaning-making machine
trying to make sense of theworld around us.
(00:42):
Now, dr Iyer is a medicaldoctor, a TEDx speaker, he's an
author, a coach, he's thepresident of his Toastmasters
Club and is a renowned expert inpersonal and professional
transformation.
As CEO of Iyer, focal Point,iyer Clinic and Active Power Inc
.
He helps high-achievingindividuals, including C-suite
(01:03):
executives, entrepreneurs,celebrities and athletes, unlock
their full potential throughmastery of inner silence.
His acclaimed programs, such asArt of Living, leadership and
Cognitive Alignment Workshop,empower clients to break free
from their limiting patterns,achieve clarity and cultivate
purpose-driven lives.
Specializing in two rapidmindset shifts, dr Iyer guides
(01:25):
individuals from a consumermindset to a creator's
perspective.
You're going to love thisinterview.
This one is so full of justprofound, deep statements and
deep thinking.
You might even want to listento this one again.
So let's go ahead and jumpright into my interview with Dr
Ravi Iyer.
Thank you so much for beinghere, and one of the things that
(01:53):
I was really interested inlearning about and having you
share with me and with ouraudience here is just this idea
about how eliminating mentalclutter can unlock greater
clarity and focus and reallyproductivity, especially for
high achievers, and I thinkespecially in high achievers
they think well, I've achievedso much, I've figured out a way
to work with that, but there'sstill that mental chatter and so
(02:16):
on.
Dr. Ravi Iyer (02:16):
So I'd love for you to maybe just start there
for us this ability to isolateyourself from the mental chatter
is a capacity that exists foreveryone.
Like anything else, it's amuscle that needs to be
exercised and if you don'texercise it it diminishes in its
(02:37):
power and it atrophies, but itnever disappears.
It just means that if you havenot done the work, then at some
point, when you begin to do thework, initially you will find it
hard going and then eventuallyyou'll get better and better at
it and more easy.
But if you analyze the way youand I live our lives, we have
(03:00):
five sense organs eyes, ears,nose, tongue, taste buds, skin,
the sense of touch that allow usto interact with our
environment.
So our environment literallycontacts these five senses and
gives input in terms ofstimulation to our five senses,
(03:28):
gives input in terms ofstimulation to our five senses.
Photons strike our eye, give uscolor and light.
Molecules fall upon our tongue,give us taste.
A molecule drifts up our nose,gives us a smell of a flower,
wind molecules or air moleculesstrike our eardrums, giving us
sound.
Other molecules strike our skin, giving us touch.
Now, out of these, sensorystimulation.
(03:49):
This sensory stimulation is ourreal experience.
But coupled with thatexperience is a meaning-making
machine that we all are and wemake meanings out of stimulation
that strike us.
For example, you see somethingred and a meaning pops up Apple.
(04:13):
You smell a flower and ameaning pops up Nice or not?
So there is a meaning that popsup.
The meaning is separate fromthe experience.
The experience has no meaning.
It is you who give the meaning,and this is the reason why the
(04:36):
same experience is handleddifferently by different people
by different people.
So one person will get stressedout by a certain set of
experiences because of themeanings he gives it.
Another person does not getstressed out from the same set
of experience because of themeanings they give.
Now, the meaning-making machinethat we are has a very simple
(04:58):
principle the meaning-makingmachine has only one purpose and
its purpose is survival.
The meaning-making machineexists and makes meanings so
that it can put a certain valueon our experience, and it makes
a value and decides whether thisvalue is favorable or
(05:20):
unfavorable to you.
So the purpose of themeaning-making machine is to
constantly position yourselfinto situations that are
favorable for you and toconstantly avoid situations that
are unfavorable to you.
So, for example, a thorn pricksyour skin and there is a
(05:41):
stimulation, but thatstimulation is experienced by
your meaning-making machine asunpleasant and the reaction is I
move my finger away.
But the next time you see apointy object you will move the
finger away before it touchesyou.
And then your reaction is nowdetermined by the meaning you
(06:03):
made by your previous encounterwith that pointy object.
So your response today isdetermined by your past
experience.
So like this I just took oneexample.
But imagine layer upon layerupon layer of complexity in our
meaning-making machine that formthe prison walls of our life,
(06:26):
such that life shows up to usonly within the filter of our
meaning-making machine.
Now, some people are fortunate.
They grew up in an environmentwhere the meanings they made
were a little more expansive, alittle more less restrictive and
more opportunistic, andtherefore they have lives full
(06:49):
of opportunity, pleasure.
And other people grew up insituations where their past
created meanings that wererestrictive, that were defining,
that were fearful, that werelimiting in their definitions
and therefore the rest of theirlife.
Their future shows up aslimiting and definite and
defining themselves.
(07:10):
But regardless whether it isthe first person who has a more
expansive meaning-making machineor another person who has a
more restrictive meaning-makingmachine, they are both
functioning within a prison wall.
The only difference is thisguy's courtyard is only so big
and that guy's courtyard is huge, and the time this guy the time
(07:32):
the successful guy is spendingin the courtyard is more.
The time that this unsuccessfulperson is spending in the
courtyard of his life is less,and therefore they experience,
but both of them are limited bytheir meanings.
So when you deal with verysuccessful people, they
initially enjoy the vast freedomof their courtyard until they
(07:55):
bump up and say, hey, wait aminute, I don't care how big my
courtyard is, there's still aboundary wall and this boundary
wall prevents me from reallyexpanding and experiencing life.
And they don't know that theboundary wall and this boundary
wall prevents me from reallyexpanding and experiencing life.
And they don't know that theboundary wall was their own
meaning-making machine.
And I show them thatmeaning-making machine is not
who they are.
(08:16):
It is like.
I'll give you an example.
This lesson was taught to me atthe age of 22.
And the person who taught methis lesson was a monk in a
monastery.
I visited that monastery andthis monk and he asked me a
simple question.
He said did you have a bowelmovement today?
And I said yeah, I did.
I got up this morning.
(08:36):
I had a good bowel movement.
He said yeah.
I said okay, when you had thatbowel movement, after you had
that bowel movement, did youreally spend time inspecting and
playing with your excreta?
I said no and I was wonderingwhere the conversation was going
.
And he said your digestivesystem takes in food and it
(08:58):
converts that food into usefulproducts for your body, and one
of the products that converts itis excreta.
And the excreta has a purpose.
The purpose is to get out ofyour body, just like the blood
that your digestive system makeshas a purpose, that is, to
circulate in your body.
Like that, he said, your braintakes in your stimulus from your
(09:21):
five senses and converts itinto hopes and dreams and plans
and fears and wishes and all themeanings of your life.
He said they are just likeexcreta.
You are not.
He said you are not the excretathat your body makes.
(09:42):
You are not the meaning thatyour body makes.
You are the capacity to perceivelife.
Once you understand that you arethe pure awareness of life, the
capacity to actually beavailable to these senses, then
(10:03):
you decide which meaning wantsto come up.
You recognize that the body willthrow up meanings, but once you
shift your identity from beingthe meaning-making machine to
being the receiver of theproducts of the meaning-making
machine.
Then as a receiver, you canchoose to receive or not receive
(10:27):
.
You know everybody goes aroundand says, oh, sticks and stones
may break my bones, but wordscannot hit you know, that kind
of thing Does that really shiftyou?
It doesn't help you, no matterhow much you say, because you
believe that those words are themeanings that you are, until
you actually shift your position, your identity, into the space
(10:51):
where these meanings pop up,where you see these meanings,
like the excreta that comes out,like the byproducts of your
digestive system that comes out,and some of the byproducts are
useful, some of them are not.
Some of them are fragrant andsome of them are not fragrant.
(11:13):
You can pick and choose, whichapplies to the position of your
life at this moment, becausethen you see yourself as the
user of the meanings, not as thevictim of your meanings.
Tom DuFore (11:28):
That is very profound in how you explain that
.
That is very profound in howyou explain that To that point
and as you've described that,what are some common patterns or
things that you see in businessleaders, successful individuals
or just maybe people in generalthat you see where they are
taking in this information andmaybe they're not recognizing
(11:50):
what you said, where they get tochoose right, they can choose
if they recognize that.
So what are some commonlimiting patterns that you see
there?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (11:58):
So the essence of ability to recognize is the
ability to make a distinction.
When there is no distinction,there can be no recognition.
All right, that's important.
So the problem that people haveis they don't have distinctions
, they don't know.
I'll give you an example In theKalahari Desert there is the
Kalahari bush pygmy.
Now, the Kalahari bush pygmycan know from a dimple in the
(12:23):
sand a little bit of slightdepression in the sand.
He can know what kind ofcreature created that, he can
know its size, its age, he canknow what it was pursuing and he
can know a whole lot ofinformation from just a dimple.
(12:44):
For me, that is nothing.
For me it is just sand, becauseI don't have the distinction of
that, because I don't have thedistinction of that.
So when people live their lifein the meaning-making machine,
imagine if you were to go to arestaurant and you sit down and
instead of eating the meal, youeat the menu that describes the
(13:06):
meal.
The meaning-making machine isthe menu of life.
The meal of life is actuallybeing present to experience.
Now I'll give you afive-year-old child walks out
into the lawn and he finds astick.
The five-year-old child doesnot have a meaning for the stick
.
So that stick now can be somany different things.
(13:29):
It can be a sword, it can be aspear, it can be a Robin Hood
staff, it can be a bow, it canbe a spear, it can be a Robin
Hood staff, it can be a bow, itcan be an arrow, it can be so
many different things.
And for a fire old that stickis a source of wonder because of
all the possibilities that thestick exists.
Then somewhere along the waythat fire old decides that the
(13:52):
stick is a sword and from thatpoint onwards every stick in
that fire old's life can only bea sword.
So the problem is, by the timeyou are become an adult, you no
longer you've forgotten how itis to experience.
You live your life by thedefinitions of your
(14:14):
meaning-making machine and thereis very little joy there, just
like there is very little tastein eating the menu.
There's no flavor there.
What people do to experience toactually break themselves out of
their prison of theirmeaning-making machine is they
try to shake things up.
(14:35):
They go on a vacation, go tosome place where they've never
been before, where the oldmeanings don't make sense
anymore, and suddenly they feelexpansive, they feel experienced
, and they mistake that theythink that that freedom, that
joy, that excitement that theyexperience can only be had by
going on a vacation to Bora Boraor Timbuktu, or go on a hike to
(15:00):
Everest Base Camp orKilimanjaro, or do themselves up
with a drug, that they are ableto actually break out of their
meaning-making machines andactually go back into experience
, when they could have that bysimply sitting in the backyard,
(15:23):
because it's fundamentallyexperience.
Right, you can have that sittingin a chair, but if you realize
that it is you who are theawareness that experiences, in
whose awareness, in the space ofyour awareness, the
meaning-making machine pops upmeanings, hurricane winds of
(15:55):
your meaning and you can pickand choose which meaning you
want to give as the direction ofyour this minute or this
instant or this hour or this dayor this year, you can choose
the direction of your life.
That's number one.
Number two the reason whypeople don't know this is
because they never practicedexperience.
And when they do experiencelife, they experience it by
(16:19):
accident, not by intention.
And because it is accidentalexperience, their ability to get
it again and again is alsoaccidental again and again is
also accidental.
Tom DuFore (16:36):
How might someone go from this accident to being
more intentional about findingthis purpose or fulfillment?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (16:40):
really, it sounds like so when you want to go and
build let's say you wanted tobuild your biceps and you build
your lats and build a six-packabdomen.
What do you do?
You go to a gym.
You go to a gym, you sit downat a machine and you work those
(17:01):
group of muscles.
You do a lat pull or you do abicep curl or you do abdominal
crunches or something like that.
Right, but each is a specificset of exercises and there is
equipment, there is place,location and there's a
commitment of time and energy.
Equipment there is place,location and there's a
commitment of time and energyLike that to develop the ability
to stand apart from themeaning-making machine.
You need to set time and youneed to participate and do some
(17:24):
exercises that get you intofocusing upon experience.
You can do it by some people.
The Japanese do the focus of atea ceremony.
That is actually anexperiential ceremony where the
meaning-making machine is shutoff and you are experiencing the
(17:45):
elegance and the art form ofmaking a cup of tea and serving
it in a very precise way andyour entire attention is focused
on rubbing it.
Everything is attention.
A person goes into a yogaposition and goes
breath-watching.
It's all experience.
It is all exercises inexperiential awareness,
(18:11):
dissociating yourself from thespace of your meaning-making
machine and going back and moreinto its experience.
And you can do this at any time.
You can do this driving yourcar.
Drive your car and payattention to everything on the
road instead of the chatter inyour mind about where you're
going.
(18:31):
Find out if you can go into aZen zone while driving your car.
When you're picking up a book,read the letters in a way where
you actually experience the inkon the paper.
See, people don't do thosethings.
When you're writing let us sayyou write your name on a piece
(18:54):
of paper experience the curl ofyour finger, the way the ink
flows, the curve of the letters,the flourish and the end and
(19:21):
the next, until you fill a pageof beautifully formed letters
where the entire exercise, youhave been totally attentive to
the flow of letters rather thansome chatter.
You can pay attention and whenyou stand before somebody and
you are paying attention,there's something magical
happens.
You gain control in thatperson's attention and your
(19:48):
ability to pay attention shutsoff that person's meaning-making
machine and that personexperiences expansion in your
presence.
Imagine as a CEO you're talkingto somebody, you're talking to
a board member and you aregiving so much attention that
that person feels empoweredbecause you shut off his
(20:09):
meaning-making machine that wasimprisoning him by the force of
your attention.
And that's what happens whenyour muscle is sufficiently
powerful.
Tom DuFore (20:18):
How can someone find out more about what you're
doing?
Get in touch with you.
What's the best way for them to?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (20:24):
do that.
Just come to my website,wwwdriyercom.
You can get me there If youpunch in my name.
I'm a public trigger done threeTEDx talks Next week.
There's going to be a Wikipediapage on me, I guess, so you can
(20:45):
find me.
Tom DuFore (20:47):
Great Well, and we'll make sure we include that
in the show notes so peopleconnect to you here.
Dr Iyer, this is a great timein the show we make a transition
and we ask every guest the samefour questions before they go.
And the first question is haveyou had a miss or two on your
journey and something youlearned from it?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (21:02):
Yeah, many years ago, 1970, 75 or 76, I nearly
failed in university.
I couldn't get into medicalschool because of my grades, and
I finally built myself up fromthat point.
So that was a pretty intensepoint in my life where I was
(21:27):
pretty beaten down by judgmentof, by the conversations and
meanings that were there.
I was barely 18 or 19.
I was 18 years old.
That was exactly when Idiscovered that I am not the
meaning making machine but theawareness in which the meanings
(21:49):
pop up, and that these meaningsthat were defining the course of
my life were only a temporaryopinion and they have only as
much power as I make thempersist.
And I just took a 100% shiftfrom there and from that point
onwards I didn't look back.
Tom DuFore (22:10):
Fantastic.
Well, thank you for sharingthat.
And how about a make ahighlight or two that you can
share?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (22:16):
The biggest highlight was actually that
pivotal point because thattransformed everything.
But from there my career tookoff from that point.
From there I went to All IndiaInstitute, the best medical
school in the country, got mydoctoral degree, went to Harvard
.
So it's been a series ofhighlights.
From there, the biggesthighlight in my life was meeting
(22:40):
the woman I ended up marrying.
That pretty much gave me forthe first time in my life a
sheltered space where I could.
I could stand and actuallysally forth from my wife became
my my fort, my space, and everysuccess emerged out of that.
Tom DuFore (23:05):
Thank you for sharing.
Well, and how about amultiplier?
The name of the show isMultiply your Success.
Have you used a multiplier togrow yourself, personally or
professionally, all the time?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (23:16):
So I have multiple companies and they all
feed in on the same commonprinciple and they work off each
other.
But even most recently, my TEDxtalk that I gave in October,
but even most recently my TEDxtalk that I gave in October it
went viral.
Right now it's having over 2.2million views in less than four
months.
And the multiplier in that casewas I wrote a book about my
(23:44):
journey to the TED stage and thebook drove the talk and the
talk drove the book, drove thetalk and the talk drove the book
.
So they bounced back and forthin a very synergistic virtuous
cycle that completely explodedits performance.
And that's just one example.
My life is full of multipliers.
I multiply all the time.
I always use somethingconnected.
(24:07):
So human connection is thebiggest multiplier.
When you are able to makesomething that you do become an
empowering feature in somebodyelse's life, that person will
automatically take what you doand amplify it.
So contributing to otherpeople's life is the biggest
(24:30):
multiplier, because when youcontribute it doesn't go off
into the ether and get wasted,because that contribution, that
person who gets contributed,wants more of it.
So they will take yourcontribution and expand and
deliver it out.
Tom DuFore (24:46):
And the final question, dr Iyer, that we ask
every guest is what does successmean to you?
Dr. Ravi Iyer (24:52):
Success means to me the ability to empower the
maximum number of people in thespan of my life that I can
possibly get.
That is my definition ofsuccess.
I believe that no one needs tospend even one second in a
wasted conversation or a wastedmeaning that deprives them of
(25:18):
the possibilities of their life.
Create the space whereineveryone who comes in contact
with me can experience anexpansion in the possibilities
that are available to them.
Tom DuFore (25:36):
Dr Iyer, thank you so much for a fantastic
interview and let's go ahead andjump into today's three key
takeaways.
So takeaway number one is whenhe talked about the
meaning-making machine has onepurpose and that's survival.
I thought that was a greatrecognition and that leads to
takeaway number two.
(25:56):
And takeaway number two is whenhe said the essence to
recognize is the ability to makea distinction, and if there's
no distinction, there is norecognition.
I thought that was a greatlittle takeaway, just to start
thinking about what he's tryingto say and communicate, about
recognizing as an example thatyou are and I am and we are
(26:21):
these meaning-making machinesthat he describes.
Which then leads to takeawaynumber three, which is when he
gave that great analogy aboutsitting at a restaurant and
imagine eating the menu at arestaurant instead of eating the
meal, and he said themeaning-making machine in all of
(26:42):
us is like eating the menu.
So he said the meaning-makingmachine is the menu of life, the
meaning of life is actuallybeing present to experience.
And so, to tie it back to hisanalogy, I think it's taking a
look at saying well, the meaningmaking machine in all of us
would be the like eating themenu lack of flavor not very
(27:07):
enjoyable versus the beingpresent to experience would be
actually reading the menu,placing an order and eating the
meal and being present in thatmoment.
And now it's time for today'swin-win.
So today's win-win came fromwhen he seemed to summarize all
(27:30):
of these pieces together and howyou can apply this not only for
yourself, but how you can helpcreate an environment for
someone else to eliminate thisdistraction.
And he said your ability to payattention shuts off the other
person's meaning making machine,which allows you to connect
(27:51):
with that person by payingattention.
I thought that was fantastic.
So when you give someone yourundivided attention, especially
in today's world where it's soeasy we all have access to our
cell phones and computers anddistractions and people needing
things from you, especially asthe leader and entrepreneur of
your business it's easy to getdistracted.
(28:14):
But when you can be focused andintentional in that moment with
that other person, you shutdown their meaning-making
machine, which allows them toconnect and for you to connect
with them, and that cuts out thenoise and distraction that
other person has and creates asafe environment, which means
that a person is going tointernalize and instinctively
(28:35):
want more of that.
Which I thought was great.
He gave a great example of thiswhere he said the biggest
highlight of his life wasmeeting the woman he ended up
marrying and she gave him thatsheltered space, and so I think
this is an example of thatattention that he's talking
about.
His wife has provided him thesafe fort as he described it,
(28:58):
and every success that he hashad has emerged out of that.
So I just thought that was agreat great summary here and
what Dr Iyer shared about whathis wife has been able to mean
to him.
It just reminds me, as the timeof this recording, brian Wilson
, the main founder and leadsongwriter for the Beach Boys,
(29:18):
passed away, and one of myfavorite songs of all time is
God Only Knows.
And boy.
It's just a great summary tothink about how that might apply
to what Dr Iyer was talkingabout with his wife.
And maybe it applies to you.
God only knows what I'd bewithout you, and who might that
be for you in your life and whomight you be that for in someone
(29:40):
else's life who might bethinking that about you Might be
a good way to ponder and thinkabout.
And so that's our episode today.
Folks, please make sure yousubscribe to the podcast and
give us a review and remember ifyou or anyone you know might be
ready to franchise theirbusiness or take their franchise
company to the next level.
Please connect with us atBigSkyFranchiseTeamcom.
Thanks for tuning in and welook forward to having you back
(30:01):
next week.
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