January 29, 2025 • 47 mins
Discover the secrets to business longevity and spiritual fulfillment with our esteemed guest, Rajesh Ananda, a celebrated spiritual meditation teacher and leader of the Foundation for International Spiritual Unfoldment (FISU). Rajesh shares his remarkable journey from a troubled youth to a passionate meditation teacher, revealing the core principles that have guided FISU's impressive global presence. His personal stories shed light on the transformative power of meditation in maintaining focus and resilience, offering invaluable insights for anyone aiming to create a lasting legacy in their own endeavors.
Unlock strategies that blend spirituality with practical business acumen. We delve into the world of lead generation where CRM tools play a crucial role in brand expansion and customer engagement. By tailoring personalized messaging and maintaining a consistent brand identity, Rajesh highlights how creative outlets—like podcasts—can serve as powerful lead magnets. This episode is packed with tactics for reaching new audiences and fulfilling a mission of serving humanity, emphasizing the importance of diversified lead channels to ensure a robust and impactful reach.
Exploring the delicate balance between spirituality and materialism, our conversation navigates the evolution of mindfulness and meditation in modern times. Rajesh discusses the challenges traditional meditation faces amidst trendy mindfulness practices and the need for adaptation to maintain authority in a crowded field. By integrating spiritual teachings with the practicalities of running a spiritual business, we explore the path from individuality to universality through personalized mantras. Rajesh provides a transparent discussion on pursuing personal and spiritual growth while maintaining the resilience needed to succeed both spiritually and materially. Tune in for a transformative conversation that promises to enrich your spiritual journey and business endeavors alike.
Check out Heallist.com for digital tools created just for holistic healers.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Yuli (00:04):
Welcome to the Healist Podcast, where we inspire and
guide healers through businessexpansion.
We give voice to incrediblyabundant healers to share their
stories.
We dive into the quantum fieldto unlock the energies of
conscious creation.
We also develop digital toolsto help you grow, which you can
(00:25):
find on HealLesscom.
I'm your host, Yuli, and I'mgrateful you chose to join this
space.
Now let's go deep.
Hello, my dear friends, anothersuper insightful episode of the
HealLess Podcast.
We're so excited to be backthis year talking more about the
(00:46):
business of holistic healing,and today we have an incredible
guest joining us for anenlightening conversation.
It is Rajesh Ananda.
He is a renowned spiritualmeditation teacher and the
leader of the Foundation forInternational Spiritual
Unfoldment.
As we dive into the secretsbehind the remarkable 50-year
(01:10):
longevity of Faisu, rajeshshares insights into building a
lasting legacy of thisincredible organization that has
50 teaching centers around theglobe.
Rajesh, welcome to the podcast.
I'm so blessed to have you hereand share your wisdom and I
love this topic of businesslongevity.
(01:33):
So, as we set intention for thisepisode as I like to do always
is, I would love to give ourlisteners a little bit of
motivational boost, whatever youwant to call it, as we're still
early in this 2025, thisincredible year to make change
and impact.
I would love to inspire them tojust keep going.
(01:56):
I think it gets hard sometimesin this business and there's so
many blocks and challenges, andit's definitely not an easy path
for teachers, healers.
So anything we can do today toinspire them to keep going, I
think is going to be reallyimpactful.
(02:18):
So thank you again and welcometo the podcast.
Rajesh (02:21):
Thank you very much.
Yes, longevity is an incredibleword.
I think behind that therealways has to be a deeply
profound effort on our part tokeep things going, because we
are going to have the challenges, we are going to have market
changes, personal changes,everything going on in our lives
(02:45):
, because our lives are movingforward, generally at a, you
know, a quite fast pace.
So when we have ourorganizational business you know
, I like to call it anorganization because we're a
non-profit and all the countrieswhere we exist Keeping going
yes, is a huge, huge challenge.
(03:07):
My sort of story of successbeing able to maintain the
organization over this longperiod of time.
I've been involved for about 45years.
The organization has been goingfor just over 50 years, and so
I've been involved since I wasin my late teens, when actually
(03:28):
I was a bit of a troubledteenager, going through those
difficult teenage years and Isought advice, and generally the
advice was learn to relax,you're too tense, you're worried
about things.
And I discovered meditation andin three months it completely
(03:50):
changed my life, so much so thatI basically said I cannot go
through my life without beingable to pass this on to other
people, and that's how my focusstarted and I have never strayed
from that focus.
In those days I was theyoungest new teacher in the
(04:12):
organization.
My guru, guru Rajnanda Yogi,basically invested time in me,
and my wife the lady that becamemy wife at that stage was
slightly more mature than me, so, as a new teacher in the
organization, they allowed me toteach, even though I was just
(04:32):
20 at that stage.
I wanted to, I was passionate,I kept that focus.
And, yes, the challenge of lifeis how do you keep that focus
over such a long period of time?
I think it becomes natural, tobe honest, after you get into
the motion.
(04:53):
The focus is always there, sortof at the back of your mind.
You don't have to live it everymoment of the day, because I
think that's sort of a mistake.
You know, when we make plans,the good thing is to make your
plans and, as such, forget them.
Just get down to the nittygritty.
Stop looking at the goal, lookat the path ahead.
(05:15):
How are you going to walk tothat goal?
You know what does that pathrequire for you to move forward
Personal stability.
You know life can be veryunstable around us.
There can be many familychanges, many work changes, etc.
We have to navigate them, butobviously I found through
(05:39):
meditation, great inner strengththat has given me that resolve
to go on.
So as we get to this sort ofyou know, end of the first month
of the year, I really want toencourage people.
We may have had a really toughJanuary because in some
businesses January is fantastic.
In others it's a real challenge.
(05:59):
You know, if you're ahairdresser or those type of
people, you know those type ofbusinesses.
We know that they suffer reallybadly, as an example, and
people don't obviously havemoney.
So January can be a really,really challenging month.
Either you're really busy oryou're really quiet.
Don't lose your resolve, youknow.
(06:20):
Go back to why you're doingthis, what's motivating you,
what changed your life that youcan pass on to other people.
So that's what essentially keptme focused those personal
changes and obviously, as I growinto greater adulthood, through
those years took on moreresponsibility.
(06:42):
That brought other challenges,but I kept my focus and, as I
said, the most important thingis doing that from a stable base
.
Yuli (06:53):
Thank you for sharing your incredible story.
Really, I think I haven't heardthat one before Somebody who's
trying to teach or getting onthis path at such an early age
and keep going for so many years.
It's somebody who's trying toteach or getting on this path at
such an early age and keepgoing for so many years.
It's truly inspiring.
And as we talk also about yourincredible organization, I want
(07:15):
to shift that a little bit tothat.
So, as a leader of organization, how do you then project that
stability and how do you planstrategically the year for your
organization that is so vast andso global and has so many
different pieces?
Rajesh (07:34):
You make for yourself.
We're really not that enormous.
We're quite a smallorganization really.
In the sense of global presencewe do.
I think organizational methodis very important and thankfully
I've always and just meaning mywife.
My wife passed awayunfortunately two years ago, so
(07:55):
I continue our legacy with thesame amount of focus.
That time investment isbasically again very important.
The challenge of running a largeorganization, I think it's
organization and method, as Isaid.
So normally at the beginning ofthe year we decide what we're
going to do, what courses aregoing to run.
(08:16):
Now, normally the courses thatwe run the residential deepening
courses for the people thathave learned with us have to be
booked a year in advance anywayto get the venues.
We don't own those venues, wego in and rent them etc.
So as such, we're moving one ortwo years ahead in the
principal basis of those coursesthat we're booking, the venues
(08:40):
booked etc.
Then we release the details topeople to say it's safe to go
and book your flights because weget a lot of interchange
through Europe etc.
So I just looked.
If you go onto my website,there's an article actually
about we manage the businessthrough an app called Asana, but
there are many to sort of to doin business apps.
(09:01):
This is my personal favorite.
I've used many of them throughmy career and through running
this organization and I commiteverything into this.
I have my weekly planner and Iplan out exactly every day.
I put all my appointments inthere.
It links with other things aswell, so I've normally got four
(09:23):
or five weeks ahead and I'm sortof filling that.
And obviously we have theplanned promotions, the
advertising when I do a publictalk, if I need time to put
aside for making podcasts, formaking videos, all those types
of things.
So having a base or somewherewhere you commit that to paper
just really, really helps mekeep super organized and I've
(09:47):
really done that most of my life.
It's a very important part.
I'm a bit of a tech boy actually.
I mean Vice, who runscompletely our organization on
the salesforceorg platform.
So we're a nonprofit.
Salesforcecom is the financial.
You know the sales side.
Financial dot org supportsnon-profits and so for the last
(10:11):
20 years we've run all ourcourses.
Everything goes back into orgwhere we manage the progression
of all the students, theirsessions, what they've learned,
they can create a support case,etc, etc.
All our plans go there andagain, it just requires focus.
(10:33):
But what I love is just, youknow, making a plan, so getting
it.
Don't think of every singleplan every moment of the day,
because that's torture.
But then, as you work throughyour diary and you see what's
coming up, you commit time tothat.
Time is such an importantinvestment and, you know, one of
the biggest challenges we haveis that life can pull us in so
(10:56):
many different directions andoften because of that we don't
become as efficient.
So one thing I've reallylearned to do is to like well,
I'm going to allocate thisamount of time today, and
sometimes that can flow.
Sometimes I don't even planthat.
I'm like, oh, I've got a coupleof hours free, right, I'm going
to look at my list.
I'm like, oh, I've got a coupleof hours free, right, I'm going
(11:18):
to look at my list, I'm goingto bite off some of this,
because if you bite off littlebits, it's a lot easier than
trying to chew the whole thing.
So time investment is so, soimportant.
Being organized is superimportant to, I think, being
successful.
Yuli (11:30):
That's an incredible lesson and I couldn't agree more
.
And since you mentioned allthose amazing tools, one I
wanted to summarize a little bitfor our listeners who might be
not as tech-savvy or familiar.
So Asana is an amazing platformfor project management and you
know we at Healist we useClickUp as our main tool, which
(11:51):
is kind of similar.
There's many, many incredibletools that are out there.
Some of them are moresophisticated, some of them
built for teams, some of themmore appropriate for individual
users.
So it's really worth spendingactually this early time of the
year, especially in Januaryeasier, slow months and getting
your systems in order.
(12:12):
I think it just sets you up forgreat success and creates some
great habits throughout the year.
So I highly recommend CheckIt'son its platforms and if you
don't have a team of people thatyou're working with, you're
just looking for your ownindividual.
You know slightly moreorganized task list and you know
calendars are great, butthey're not always put things in
right priorities right.
(12:33):
So I personally also use Trello.
It's just my daily quick toolthat I can use, perfect tool,
yes, and it's just so easy.
Yeah, and it has a mobile app.
So if I'm on the go and I wantto update something, I do
through the app, but really whatI do with my Trello, actually,
I have a couple of boards andsome of them like more like long
(12:54):
term goals and focuses, maybefor this quarter, right and then
I have a separate board forthis week only and I literally I
train myself not to even lookat the long term stuff unless
it's my planning day or I'm likereally deep into some works.
I only focus on what's thisweek, because that's how I
personally avoid the overwhelmof being a startup founder.
(13:17):
Because, if you think, abouteverything all the time.
Rajesh (13:20):
You're just overwhelmed.
Yuli (13:21):
Right right.
Rajesh (13:23):
And that often creates fear, and then you just sort of
get stuck, you know exactly.
What I love about you know,discovering your organization is
that you have an amazingback-office system.
So people and that's one of mybig recommendations have your
plans that you need to havesystems.
You cannot do this on the backof a cigarette packet, as the
(13:47):
old saying goes.
It's a good place to start, butin our modern day world where
everything is so interconnectedemails, social appointments
having a back office system thatyou invest time to keep up to
date, to love and to look afterbecause you do need to love it.
When you love it, it loves youback.
Yuli (14:09):
Well, thank you for this great compliment and, honestly,
that's how we build Healist.
We build it with lots of loveand lots of good energy and high
vibrations to infuse into thishealing space.
Because I know that tools andadmin and back office is not the
favorite places where healerslike to be right, yeah, so when
(14:32):
we build those tools, we keepthat in mind, that it has to be
super easy, super user friendly,speaking in their language and
this is my pleasure of buildingthe software is how I found, you
know, this perfect combinationof being the geek that I am,
just like you, and being alsothis productivity perfectionist
(14:55):
a little bit right.
I like to be efficient.
I like things to flow.
I don't like to do dumb tasksthat technology can do.
I wouldn't utilize my highestpotential as a human, so as much
as I can outsource totechnology, I love doing that.
So I try to bring all of thatinto the holistic healing world
that you know and bridge thatgap and show people that you can
(15:20):
actually really improve yourlife Right.
It's not just something toolsthat you can intimidate by or be
overwhelmed by every day andjust dread about doing.
Rajesh (15:30):
You know how I look at these tools, you know, because
I'm a bit of a tech boy and I douse, apart from Asana and
Salesforce, some other tools.
I look at those as an extensionof my creativity completely.
I'm a creative person but I'vegot to funnel that somewhere,
I've got to commit that todigital paper or whatever.
(15:54):
So these, these apps anddifferent things I use are and
it's such a wonderful extensionof my creativity and they
embrace my creativity and theyallow me to express it in
another way that's amazing.
Yuli (16:09):
Yes, I love to.
I love this analogy and youknow it.
Definitely, those are tools ofexpression, like you said and
you know.
Since you mentioned also someof the CRM tools and again for
our listeners who may be notfamiliar, salesforce is a great
example of a CRM tool that is, aclient relationship management
platform.
(16:29):
There's again many others andthey range from something that
is similar to like pen and paperand Excel spreadsheet or the
Google Sheets, for example, tomore sophisticated tools like
Salesforce, who also integratewith other systems like email,
like if you're using MailChimpor one of the email sender
(16:50):
providers, they might integratewith that.
And the beauty of those toolsreally that they connect all the
customer data from differentplaces and allow you to not just
organize it and manage it, butthen also work with it
proactively in a more creativeways and really tailor messaging
and personalize it.
So can you talk a little bitabout how your organization is
(17:14):
working with some of those tools?
Rajesh (17:17):
Yeah, I suppose one of the focus beyond the creativity
is we're lead generating, aren'twe?
We want new customers, notalways from a commercial sense.
We want to spread our messagethat we want to help people.
You know, I see, ourorganization is basically
founded in serving humanity.
(17:38):
That is, that is our coremission.
So everything else you know,the, the social posts and
everything you know, we do wantto generate leads, but the
purpose of that is to have morepeople that we can educate into
our system.
We can teach them to meditatein our unique system, and we
(18:01):
know their lives are going to bemuch better because of that.
So obviously, we have bills,like everyone else.
So there has to be somecommercial year, and I'm never
embarrassed about that becauseeveryone has bills.
You know it still costs you tosend one email, regardless of
(18:22):
you know we see that as beingfree.
So we need to generate income.
Obviously, our purpose is, youknow, to connect with those
people, to help them, to servethem, etc.
But that's all under theumbrella of what I call lead
generation.
So for any business, you cannotneglect this.
You've got to be on it almostevery day if you can.
(18:47):
Or, again, you will portioncertain times where you're going
to look at your posts.
You know what do I say here.
How can I attract new customers?
Do I need to pay foradvertising?
Is it appropriate to pay foradvertising now?
Is this the right time?
So we all go through thosecontinual questions about how do
we put ourselves in a good wayin front of other people.
(19:12):
I'm very, you know, protectiveof my brand.
Everything that I producesocially or on our website is
very brand focused, and I thinkthat's very important.
You are unique.
Whether you're a healer,whether you're.
You have a unique skill.
Therefore, you are your ownbrand and it's very good that
(19:33):
you continue to preserve thatbrand.
Think about that brand.
Don't keep changing it, becauseit really confuses people who
you are.
Get really solid about yourbrand and then bring it forward.
Bring it forward more and more.
So, you know, in our longevity,we've only really had one logo
change in that sort of 50 years,so to speak, and our brand is
(19:56):
consistent.
Everything we do, even if wepost a picture, it will have a
little logo somewhere on it, etc.
So that people can identifythat eventually with us.
But any business we've just gotto commit and it can be really,
this is probably the mostchallenging part of any business
(20:16):
, whether you're a commercialbusiness or you're a non-profit
how do I get new customers?
So we've got to allocate, we'vegot to read, we've got to learn
, we've got to learn what'sgoing to fit well in our arena.
How often should we post, etc.
Just to maintain it?
Our arena, how often should wepost, etc.
Just to maintain it?
(20:37):
But I think again, do not getobsessive about this, but be
active.
You can't just go for threemonths and not say anything or
post anything or do an advertand then accept customers.
It ain't going to happen.
You've got to raise yourpresence, you've got to raise
your profile and you've got tospend, I would say, an hour and
(21:00):
a day thinking about that.
Seriously, it doesn't have tobe every day, but maybe like
three days a week.
You're thinking right, what do Ido?
How do I get new customers?
Where do my customers live?
How do I find them?
What's their demographia?
Are they mainly female?
Are they between these certainages?
(21:22):
Does my messaging embrace them?
Does it attract them?
I think, lead generation.
I've had my good times and I'vehad my really bad times when I
just thought, oh God, nothing isworking, you know, and
sometimes that's just a lessonon refocusing, relooking at it
(21:43):
or just keeping on becauseyou're not in control of all so
many other elements, you know.
So it really, again, it's thattime commitment, it's that focus
that we need to just carry onamazing well.
Yuli (21:59):
Thank you for sharing all those insights and just to add
from my end a little bit aswe're, we're all in the same
boat, no matter what businessyou are we're also working on.
You know.
This podcast actually is a leadgeneration strategy for us.
It is a creative outlet for me.
Don't get me wrong, it's one ofmy really favorite things to do
in this business and I so muchlook forward to that.
(22:22):
But it's been also anincredible lead magnet, right?
Because the people that findthis podcast they most likely
are our audience and at somepoint they want to check out
Healist and what we do and theymight then take maybe some of
our workshops.
They sign up for a platform,they become part of our network
(22:44):
and eventually they upgrade toour paid subscription.
This is the funnel and we allget creative.
And another important point isyou have to All get creative.
And another important point isyou have to diversify your lead
channels so we can't put all ofour eggs in this podcast bucket
because as much as it's great,it's only limited to a certain
audience.
(23:04):
So you kind of have to testyour audience in different
channels and fine tune but atthe same time kind of stay alive
on many of them.
That's what I find important,because the different people
that are going to come throughpodcasts tune but at the same
time kind of stay alive on manyof them.
That's what I find important,because the different people
that are going to come throughpodcasts is not going to be the
same people are going to comethrough email marketing or
social media and you kind ofwant to reach them all.
Rajesh (23:26):
Yeah, it's like every avenue is almost like a unique
channel and you have to servethat unique channel.
Yuli (23:33):
Right, but some of them are also great and just kind of
what we call nurturing leads ifwe're getting further into
marketing terminology, right,which I embrace, I love having,
by the way I love having aconversation with someone like
yourself who is deeply spiritualand has a great mission to
impact the world.
But we can also get intoconversations about leads in a
(23:53):
different sense.
Yes, definitely, definitely,absolutely.
Mission to impact the world,but we can also get into
conversations about the business.
Rajesh (23:55):
Yeah, yes, definitely definitely, absolutely, you know
.
That's why we we go back aboutsystems to help you do that.
You know putting.
I think one of the mostimportant things is when someone
is engaged with you.
That's not the only engagement.
If you can put them on somesort of marketing drip and
programs like MailChimp arecheap, they're included Spend a
(24:19):
couple of hours looking at thosevideos and then, when you've
interacted with someone, they'llgo on a journey for six or
seven weeks where you tell themgood stuff about you.
Obviously, they can unsubscribeif they want to, providing that
you've subscribed through aconversation or through email,
(24:43):
and then you just keep drip,feeding that information.
It's so, so important.
In our system.
All our leads come intoSalesforce and then they get
updated and that automaticallytalks to MailChimp and we'll put
them on a journey, depending onwhere they are, etc.
So we've got that all automated, so I don't have to worry about
(25:05):
that.
I think well, okay, this personattended an intro talk.
They didn't take any action.
Are they going to learn with us?
We put them on a different typeof drip to basically say well,
you attended, you know somethingabout this.
So here's some more informationthat's complementary to what
you've already heard, or we gotthis sort of cold.
You know that they may havefilled out a form just asking
(25:29):
for more information and then weput them on, you know, a colder
drip which talks more abouttheir pain and how we can help
them with that, etc.
Yuli (25:38):
That's a great, great point.
And, again, thanks for sharingthose strategies, because I
think it's really important aswe think about our audience and
our clients.
And when I say clients orcustomers, it's anyone who has
ever been exposed to work,basically, For practitioners.
It's someone who, yes, may havebeen your client for many years
, but there's all those otherpeople that are potential
(26:00):
clients, right, that could turninto a client, and this is a
very important group to workwith.
And within this group, you canhave different layers, right.
You can have people that youhad a very brief conversation
with.
Or you can have people that youknow maybe attended like
different workshops or classesthat you had a very brief
conversation with.
Or you can have people that youknow maybe attended like
different workshops or classesthat you taught, but now you
want to try to interest them inyour one-on-one services.
(26:24):
So, all those different groups,it's so important to have a
system to identify and tagproperly.
Because once you've done that,and even if you're working with
just Excel spreadsheet, justhave different columns, come up
with different names for thembut put them in different
buckets, because if you canpersonalize their journeys, this
(26:44):
is gold.
This is where you win.
This is when people stopunsubscribing.
They're actually opening youremails, they're actually reading
them, they're actually takingaction.
Rajesh (26:56):
I think it can be simple as hot, warm and cold.
But you know they've been intouch with you a few times.
It looks like you know theywant your services.
You know in that moment they'revery interested.
So they're hot.
Warm is like they might beslightly indifferent, they
haven't had too much engagement,and then put them then on a
warm list and then obviously acold list means they've had very
usual engagement with you andyou need to warm them up.
(27:18):
You make them warmer and getthem hot.
Very simple and works.
It's very simple.
Honestly, you know peoplecomplicate marketing.
It's really simple.
At the end of the day, keep itsimple, because if you don't
keep it simple, you just won't.
You won't manage it.
It'll just become sooverbearing that you'll just
(27:39):
give up, and that that's oftenwhy people just give up.
Sometimes, import is the bestyou know as far as marketing.
Keep it really simple.
As you evolve, you can make itmore sophisticated, you can
increase it, you can get peopleto help you, but obviously today
we have the wonders of ai.
So I I'm keen, I do use ai.
(28:01):
I'm, I'm.
I think it's an amazing tool.
I will normally write most ofmy stuff, but I might pass it
through ai to say what do youthink this is this?
You know this is the audience.
You know these people are hotaudience.
You know these people are hot.
You know, is this a goodmessage for hot people?
So use the tools that are there, that are free, to continue
(28:21):
your journey, to keep your focusthere.
Yuli (28:24):
Absolutely, and I could agree more about AI in terms of
improving and optimizing yourmessaging.
It often has suggestions that Iwould never think about.
I know it's so clever.
Rajesh (28:38):
Especially, like not all of us.
You know I'm used to writingand I love writing and I think I
do it reasonably well.
But you know, some people sayto me I could never write
because my grammar isn't good.
And I said, no, don't worry,just write it right into GBT or
Gemini and just ask them tocorrect the grammar.
You're done in one second.
(28:58):
You don't have to struggle withthat.
You know, keep it simple.
Yuli (29:02):
Absolutely.
As someone who is, you know,english is my third language.
I can attest that I've beenwriting way more since I have
had GBT, because I was just veryself-conscious about my grammar
.
It would take so much time,with different tools, to try to
correct it that I eventuallywould give up.
And now suddenly I can producecontent that I'm not ashamed of
(29:24):
because I don't want to have.
Rajesh (29:27):
I must interject a bit of a funny story here, because
when I was young I mean, as youcan tell, I'm from the UK, I
grew up in London Educationalstandards through the time that
I was at high school weren'tgreat and really weird.
We're the base of the Englishlanguage and we weren't taught
proper grammar.
So when I got together with mywife my wife was a foreigner.
(29:49):
My wife was from Trinidad inthe Caribbean we came to London.
My wife was from Trinidad inthe Caribbean.
We came to London.
She came to London and I met herthere and she had the most
perfect grammar because she'dbeen learned abroad and grammar
had been taught to themperfectly Well.
I can honestly tell you that Iwas trying to write all this
stuff you know, newsletters andthings and we nearly had
(30:12):
divorces about where commercewent.
She was like I can't speak yourEnglish and you don't know
where it's for the commerce.
You know I had to learn that.
Now I write really well, but Istruggle with that so much, so
much so you can improve inwhatever you're doing.
Yuli (30:30):
You know you can improve from what you're doing
Absolutely Well.
I love those stories.
Where, where do we go from here?
I feel like we know we're onsuch a path of really uh, diving
deep into a lot of themarketing and systems and
business strategies and it'sjust so insightful and hopefully
inspires many of our listenersto take action.
(30:51):
You know I want to talk alittle bit about the subject of
business, competition and theholistic business and you know
this whole idea because I thinkwhen also things get slow or
maybe tough or, you know, startmaybe questioning our path,
there's the inevitablecomparison that comes in right.
(31:13):
It's part of that cloud.
Rajesh (31:17):
Yes, yes, definitely.
Yuli (31:19):
So how do you, especially for organization?
It's been so many years andyou've seen this space evolving
so much just in the last fewyears, all of a sudden, you know
, going from just a fewmeditation schools out there,
just a couple of meditationtechniques, now there's hundreds
, right, yeah, how?
Rajesh (31:39):
do you?
Yuli (31:40):
thrive in this environment .
Rajesh (31:42):
Yeah, what was the big I can honestly say upset for us
is when mindfulness came in fullblast, because there is a big
difference between mindfulnessand meditation.
Full blast, because there is abig difference between
mindfulness and meditation andthis, you know, it was more
about mental health andmindfulness and using meditation
as a tool.
So there was a lot of mixedmessaging at this time.
(32:05):
But it took off and, to behonest, we were almost left
behind because it took off andwe weren't teaching mindfulness,
we were teaching meditation,though they are closely related.
So we had to look again atsublings all these people
teaching mindfulness.
(32:25):
Where do we sit in all of thisnow?
It was a very difficult time.
I'm going back about ten yearswhen all this sort of you know
started here in the US with youknow, with different mindfulness
teachers, and it sort of spreadaround the world.
It's changed now.
Meditation has a much higherprofile than mindfulness, you
(32:46):
know.
So it's reverted back and I'mreally happy about that because
you know who is observing who.
In mindfulness, you know you'remeant to think about day, but
who is the observer at the endof the day?
It's still you.
The meditation endears you withthat knowingness of yourself in
(33:06):
such a deep way that you arethe observer.
Okay, it's not your mind, it'sa deeper aspect of you that's
observing.
Sorry, I digress no, don't besorry this is all part of the
yeah so when this, when thistook off, it was like why do we
sit?
You know, we seem to have.
You know, no one seems to wantus anymore, and they were.
(33:29):
They were really difficultyears, but we held fast because,
at the end of the day, what wedo is quite unique, and that's
what I want to get across toyour listeners.
There's only one you.
It sounds a bit of a cliche Now.
We hear this all the time.
There's only one, you.
There's only someone who hasyour experience, but we have to
(33:50):
celebrate that.
If we've done all that we spokeabout before, if we have the
passion to help others, we wantto make a change in the world.
Yes, of course we want to earna living and support ourselves
and our family.
Nothing wrong with that.
That's part of it and I'm surewe'll talk about that.
That's the big point.
You know the balance betweenthe material and the spiritual
(34:11):
which confuses so, so manypeople.
The important thing is stick toyour guns.
If you know, this is correct.
Yes, look at what everyone elseis doing, learn from what
they're doing, because theremight be some gems in there that
you haven't thought about, orthings have evolved and you've
stood still a bit.
So you need to move forward.
(34:32):
But essentially go back to I amunique, my offering is unique.
Yes, there is a tribe for meout there.
I just now have to be a bitmore clever in how I connect
with that tribe.
How do I put my head above theball pit, so to speak?
How do I show my uniqueness?
And all that is completelypossible with your messaging.
(34:56):
So, like we have a new websitethat I rewrote completely to
bring it sort of up to date, andI'm thinking, well, I've come
to New York, oh, my God, there'sso many people doing meditation
.
How do I raise my head aboutthat?
How do I show my authority?
But I think I've managed thatbecause when I read back sort of
(35:17):
trying to be as objective as Ican, even though I'm the author,
I bring it back and go tryingto be as objective as I can,
even though I'm the author, Ibring it back to that.
How will people think aboutthis?
You know, am I showing myauthority here?
And that's what we need to do.
If you're good at something, ifyou're good enough to say I'm a
healer, I've got something.
I can help people.
You have to focus on that.
(35:38):
You have to show your authority, that this, whatever you do,
lies especially with you and youcan help others because of it.
Yuli (35:48):
It's beautifully said.
Rajesh (35:50):
Thank you.
Yuli (35:52):
Yes, I had a moment to digest that and integrate, but
no, and you mentioned also avery important topic of
balancing spiritual and material, which I would love to get your
message across, because youstrike me as somebody who is
(36:12):
very well balanced in the areaand I love meeting, like I said
before, people in the space thatare deeply grounded and figured
out all the conflicts andblocks around this issue, that
we can talk a lot about thehistory, where it's coming from
(36:32):
and how long it's been around,and each of us also have unique
backgrounds that add to that.
But it's something that Ireally see as one of the mission
for my company, even though, ifyou look at it as a platform
and technology platform andsystems and practice management
tools, but I really see one ofour deepest missions is to help
(36:56):
healers balance this spiritualversus material area and I would
love to have your take on thatokay.
Rajesh (37:06):
Well, normally when I, when I talk publicly about the
situation, because it get usoften, like you know, I'm
working and I have money, but Iwant to live a spiritual life
and for me the spiritual,material worlds are the same,
are the same, I think you knowwe have the material world to
(37:32):
help us have greater tangibilitywith the more abstract
spiritual divine.
So we need to go.
So the material side of life ismore concrete, so we go through
the concrete to reach theabstract.
I'm going to talk about lovehere because that's very, you
know, essential.
Part of what I teach is, forinstance, like you know, why,
(37:54):
why do we love someone else?
You know, why do we, why do weneed to be loved, why do we
crave that love?
To love someone else and beloved?
It's simply because that divineforce is so abstract to many
people.
Those that are more unfoldedget more in tune with it and we
understand it better, we live iteventually.
(38:15):
So, through the love that youhave for someone else, it's like
that is the object of your loveand that lifts you from the
material or from the lowerlevels into something far more
abstract and through that we getto know those divine forces the
(38:36):
universe, god, far moreeffectively.
So so I always say through theconcrete we reach the abstract,
and that concrete is materialism.
Now, when we look in our world,the person who's totally
materially focused is a such,because they cannot understand
that abstract.
So therefore they're focusingon the material.
(38:58):
But hopefully, as they gothrough that material
materialism will lift them intothe higher echelons and they
will, you know, experiencedivinity, god, whatever we want
to call it.
So in business we have thatsame thing the material has to
exist, but it is a vehiclethrough which we can raise our
(39:24):
services, we can raise ourmission, etc.
So people do get this very like.
They'll come to us and say okay, you're a non-profit, so why
are you charging for yourcourses?
Why are they not free?
Um, I think we have learned andI'm really pleased to share
this is those that don't paynever stay.
(39:45):
And that is one adage we havein FISU, because one year on our
25th anniversary, we taught forfree for a year and in one
central lane we taught 600people.
Only 10 of those ever remained.
(40:06):
And I think again, it's like ifyou put your hand in your pocket
, you're slightly more committed.
You know, even if it's smallamounts.
It doesn't have to be largeamounts, etc.
So we learned this Don't beembarrassed, make sure your
charges are affordable to theaudience that you're targeting,
etc.
And there's no problem in thesense that you need to earn a
(40:27):
living from this, but you haveto be, as such, focused on that.
But for me, to do my work, it'slike my organization.
I can't do my work, I can't payfor advertising, I can't pay
for the rent of this placeunless I have income.
So that is completelyfundamental to my mission and
(40:48):
therefore it must all remain inbalance.
I think the danger is okay, youcould be earning a lot of money
.
What do you do with that money?
Again, these are all human,personal judgments we make on
ourselves, aren't we?
How material am I?
Do I need to buy that, etc.
You know, I always love mygirls.
(41:10):
Use the analogy like if you canhave a rolls royce, have it,
but do not be attached to it.
So if it went to more own, youcouldn't pay the installments or
the tax or whatever and you hadto go back.
You wouldn't be devastated, etc.
(41:30):
And I think, if we have thatsame attitude in life, that
everything around us is really agift, even the material things.
I have a home, a car and thosethings.
I feel so blessed to have themand I look at them.
Sometimes when I go from thestation and see my little car
park there, I think, god, it'sso good to me, I've got this
(41:51):
wonderful little car.
So many in the world don't havethose sort of luxuries.
So it's really appreciatingwhat you have, not necessarily
craving for more.
I mean, yes, if you have afamily, your kids need shoes and
you know you've got to havemoney to do that and nothing
wrong in that at all.
(42:12):
But what is your motivation?
That's the question.
What motivates you?
What is the end goal?
One thing I love about Americathat is not so prominent in
Europe is there's a lot moregiving here.
They encourage you to give, tobe more open with charities,
with non-profits, etc.
(42:34):
I really love that in the USculture that's not so prominent
in Europe.
My English people are verygenerous, but it's not.
It's something that isn't saidas much, something that's not as
public.
So again, have what you want.
If you are working to buy a newhouse, what's wrong with that,
(42:57):
you know?
I would see that as a spiritualventure because you have to
have somewhere to live in thisworld that we live in.
That's so, so necessary, but donot be attached to it.
You know, if you've got a RollsRoyce and you're driving down
the street and you're thinkingall swanky, everyone's looking
at me because I've got thiswonderful car You're attached to
(43:19):
it.
You have created attachments.
So if someone scratches yourcar in the car park, you're
going to be.
You have created attachments.
So if someone scratches yourcar in the car park, you're
going to be super upset becauseyou have those attachments.
So if we can live more like Ineed to provide the certain
things I need to do to exist, tofulfill my mission.
But that's not going to be theend.
I'm'm not just there to youknow, fill my pocket.
Yuli (43:43):
Amazing, amazing message and resonates so much.
I can't believe we're runningout of time almost and I wanted
to give you an opportunity.
I mean, it was a reallywonderful conversation.
I feel like we could talk foranother hour, but I really
wanted to give you anopportunity to share more about
your mission and what you do andanything else you want to share
with our incredible audience ofholistic healers yeah, well, I
(44:07):
think you know.
Rajesh (44:08):
Again, one important message is you need time to rest
, you need time to center withinyourself.
Meditation is a perfect toolfor doing that.
Remember, meditation takes youfrom the surface levels into
that deep peace within, andrelaxation is the door to our
(44:30):
higher self.
So when we learn to relax, alsoin the deeper areas of ourself,
is strength, and when we gothrough meditation within
ourselves, we feel stronger, weincrease our self-esteem.
That helps our confidence.
So in business, running anorganization dealing with people
, we're much on it.
(44:51):
It's so much easier for us westop worrying.
Yes, there's a differencebetween concern and worry.
We have difficulties in life weshould be concerned with, but
we need to stop worrying becausethat goes nowhere.
So many people are totallystressed and anxious and their
minds are whirling the whole day, and that's creating so much
(45:14):
energy that depletes theirphysical energy, leads to
disease.
The meditation is just anincredible tool.
In my system, every person thatcomes to learn receives their
own individual mantra, which isbased on their vibration.
So if we were to condense youmentally, physically, mentally,
(45:37):
back into sound value, becausewe're basically atoms that are
vibrating and we vibrate at acertain frequency and that
frequency for each of us isunique, which is confirmed by
the iris in our eye, our DNA andour fingerprints.
So, even though we're relatedas the brotherhood of man, we
(45:58):
found our own individuality ofman.
We found our own individuality.
So my organization's mission isto take you from individuality
to universality and give you allthe benefits that outfall
meditation gives you when youpractice regularly.
Yuli (46:18):
Amazing.
Well, thank you for being thereand really dedicating your life
to this incredible mission.
I'm very privileged andgrateful to have you on this
podcast and not just sharingyour beautiful spiritual
teachings, but also diving deepinto some of those behind the
scenes aspects of thosespiritual businesses but not
(46:40):
many people talk about or evenopen to talking about.
So I'm really, really excitedabout this conversation and I
think sharing some of this dataand talking about topics like
the material and spiritual andsharing some of your learnings
is going to be really beneficialfor a lot of our listeners.
Rajesh (46:59):
I really hope so.
We're all going to.
As I said at the beginning,we're all going to have
challenges and difficult times.
Soldier through, have yourfocus, remember your mission,
rest, have time to be objective,to rest and just do a great job
, be successful.
Yuli (47:18):
Amazing.
Thank you again and see yousoon.
Rajesh (47:21):
Thank you for having me.
Welcome to the Healist Podcast, where we inspire and
guide healers through businessexpansion.
We give voice to incrediblyabundant healers to share their
stories.
We dive into the quantum fieldto unlock the energies of
conscious creation.
We also develop digital toolsto help you grow, which you can
(00:25):
find on HealLesscom.
I'm your host, Yuli, and I'mgrateful you chose to join this
space.
Now let's go deep.
Hello, my dear friends, anothersuper insightful episode of the
HealLess Podcast.
We're so excited to be backthis year talking more about the
(00:46):
business of holistic healing,and today we have an incredible
guest joining us for anenlightening conversation.
It is Rajesh Ananda.
He is a renowned spiritualmeditation teacher and the
leader of the Foundation forInternational Spiritual
Unfoldment.
As we dive into the secretsbehind the remarkable 50-year
(01:10):
longevity of Faisu, rajeshshares insights into building a
lasting legacy of thisincredible organization that has
50 teaching centers around theglobe.
Rajesh, welcome to the podcast.
I'm so blessed to have you hereand share your wisdom and I
love this topic of businesslongevity.
(01:33):
So, as we set intention for thisepisode as I like to do always
is, I would love to give ourlisteners a little bit of
motivational boost, whatever youwant to call it, as we're still
early in this 2025, thisincredible year to make change
and impact.
I would love to inspire them tojust keep going.
(01:56):
I think it gets hard sometimesin this business and there's so
many blocks and challenges, andit's definitely not an easy path
for teachers, healers.
So anything we can do today toinspire them to keep going, I
think is going to be reallyimpactful.
(02:18):
So thank you again and welcometo the podcast.
Rajesh (02:21):
Thank you very much.
Yes, longevity is an incredibleword.
I think behind that therealways has to be a deeply
profound effort on our part tokeep things going, because we
are going to have the challenges, we are going to have market
changes, personal changes,everything going on in our lives
(02:45):
, because our lives are movingforward, generally at a, you
know, a quite fast pace.
So when we have ourorganizational business you know
, I like to call it anorganization because we're a
non-profit and all the countrieswhere we exist Keeping going
yes, is a huge, huge challenge.
(03:07):
My sort of story of successbeing able to maintain the
organization over this longperiod of time.
I've been involved for about 45years.
The organization has been goingfor just over 50 years, and so
I've been involved since I wasin my late teens, when actually
(03:28):
I was a bit of a troubledteenager, going through those
difficult teenage years and Isought advice, and generally the
advice was learn to relax,you're too tense, you're worried
about things.
And I discovered meditation andin three months it completely
(03:50):
changed my life, so much so thatI basically said I cannot go
through my life without beingable to pass this on to other
people, and that's how my focusstarted and I have never strayed
from that focus.
In those days I was theyoungest new teacher in the
(04:12):
organization.
My guru, guru Rajnanda Yogi,basically invested time in me,
and my wife the lady that becamemy wife at that stage was
slightly more mature than me, so, as a new teacher in the
organization, they allowed me toteach, even though I was just
(04:32):
20 at that stage.
I wanted to, I was passionate,I kept that focus.
And, yes, the challenge of lifeis how do you keep that focus
over such a long period of time?
I think it becomes natural, tobe honest, after you get into
the motion.
(04:53):
The focus is always there, sortof at the back of your mind.
You don't have to live it everymoment of the day, because I
think that's sort of a mistake.
You know, when we make plans,the good thing is to make your
plans and, as such, forget them.
Just get down to the nittygritty.
Stop looking at the goal, lookat the path ahead.
(05:15):
How are you going to walk tothat goal?
You know what does that pathrequire for you to move forward
Personal stability.
You know life can be veryunstable around us.
There can be many familychanges, many work changes, etc.
We have to navigate them, butobviously I found through
(05:39):
meditation, great inner strengththat has given me that resolve
to go on.
So as we get to this sort ofyou know, end of the first month
of the year, I really want toencourage people.
We may have had a really toughJanuary because in some
businesses January is fantastic.
In others it's a real challenge.
(05:59):
You know, if you're ahairdresser or those type of
people, you know those type ofbusinesses.
We know that they suffer reallybadly, as an example, and
people don't obviously havemoney.
So January can be a really,really challenging month.
Either you're really busy oryou're really quiet.
Don't lose your resolve, youknow.
(06:20):
Go back to why you're doingthis, what's motivating you,
what changed your life that youcan pass on to other people.
So that's what essentially keptme focused those personal
changes and obviously, as I growinto greater adulthood, through
those years took on moreresponsibility.
(06:42):
That brought other challenges,but I kept my focus and, as I
said, the most important thingis doing that from a stable base
.
Yuli (06:53):
Thank you for sharing your incredible story.
Really, I think I haven't heardthat one before Somebody who's
trying to teach or getting onthis path at such an early age
and keep going for so many years.
It's somebody who's trying toteach or getting on this path at
such an early age and keepgoing for so many years.
It's truly inspiring.
And as we talk also about yourincredible organization, I want
(07:15):
to shift that a little bit tothat.
So, as a leader of organization, how do you then project that
stability and how do you planstrategically the year for your
organization that is so vast andso global and has so many
different pieces?
Rajesh (07:34):
You make for yourself.
We're really not that enormous.
We're quite a smallorganization really.
In the sense of global presencewe do.
I think organizational methodis very important and thankfully
I've always and just meaning mywife.
My wife passed awayunfortunately two years ago, so
(07:55):
I continue our legacy with thesame amount of focus.
That time investment isbasically again very important.
The challenge of running a largeorganization, I think it's
organization and method, as Isaid.
So normally at the beginning ofthe year we decide what we're
going to do, what courses aregoing to run.
(08:16):
Now, normally the courses thatwe run the residential deepening
courses for the people thathave learned with us have to be
booked a year in advance anywayto get the venues.
We don't own those venues, wego in and rent them etc.
So as such, we're moving one ortwo years ahead in the
principal basis of those coursesthat we're booking, the venues
(08:40):
booked etc.
Then we release the details topeople to say it's safe to go
and book your flights because weget a lot of interchange
through Europe etc.
So I just looked.
If you go onto my website,there's an article actually
about we manage the businessthrough an app called Asana, but
there are many to sort of to doin business apps.
(09:01):
This is my personal favorite.
I've used many of them throughmy career and through running
this organization and I commiteverything into this.
I have my weekly planner and Iplan out exactly every day.
I put all my appointments inthere.
It links with other things aswell, so I've normally got four
(09:23):
or five weeks ahead and I'm sortof filling that.
And obviously we have theplanned promotions, the
advertising when I do a publictalk, if I need time to put
aside for making podcasts, formaking videos, all those types
of things.
So having a base or somewherewhere you commit that to paper
just really, really helps mekeep super organized and I've
(09:47):
really done that most of my life.
It's a very important part.
I'm a bit of a tech boy actually.
I mean Vice, who runscompletely our organization on
the salesforceorg platform.
So we're a nonprofit.
Salesforcecom is the financial.
You know the sales side.
Financial dot org supportsnon-profits and so for the last
(10:11):
20 years we've run all ourcourses.
Everything goes back into orgwhere we manage the progression
of all the students, theirsessions, what they've learned,
they can create a support case,etc, etc.
All our plans go there andagain, it just requires focus.
(10:33):
But what I love is just, youknow, making a plan, so getting
it.
Don't think of every singleplan every moment of the day,
because that's torture.
But then, as you work throughyour diary and you see what's
coming up, you commit time tothat.
Time is such an importantinvestment and, you know, one of
the biggest challenges we haveis that life can pull us in so
(10:56):
many different directions andoften because of that we don't
become as efficient.
So one thing I've reallylearned to do is to like well,
I'm going to allocate thisamount of time today, and
sometimes that can flow.
Sometimes I don't even planthat.
I'm like, oh, I've got a coupleof hours free, right, I'm going
to look at my list.
I'm like, oh, I've got a coupleof hours free, right, I'm going
(11:18):
to look at my list, I'm goingto bite off some of this,
because if you bite off littlebits, it's a lot easier than
trying to chew the whole thing.
So time investment is so, soimportant.
Being organized is superimportant to, I think, being
successful.
Yuli (11:30):
That's an incredible lesson and I couldn't agree more
.
And since you mentioned allthose amazing tools, one I
wanted to summarize a little bitfor our listeners who might be
not as tech-savvy or familiar.
So Asana is an amazing platformfor project management and you
know we at Healist we useClickUp as our main tool, which
(11:51):
is kind of similar.
There's many, many incredibletools that are out there.
Some of them are moresophisticated, some of them
built for teams, some of themmore appropriate for individual
users.
So it's really worth spendingactually this early time of the
year, especially in Januaryeasier, slow months and getting
your systems in order.
(12:12):
I think it just sets you up forgreat success and creates some
great habits throughout the year.
So I highly recommend CheckIt'son its platforms and if you
don't have a team of people thatyou're working with, you're
just looking for your ownindividual.
You know slightly moreorganized task list and you know
calendars are great, butthey're not always put things in
right priorities right.
(12:33):
So I personally also use Trello.
It's just my daily quick toolthat I can use, perfect tool,
yes, and it's just so easy.
Yeah, and it has a mobile app.
So if I'm on the go and I wantto update something, I do
through the app, but really whatI do with my Trello, actually,
I have a couple of boards andsome of them like more like long
(12:54):
term goals and focuses, maybefor this quarter, right and then
I have a separate board forthis week only and I literally I
train myself not to even lookat the long term stuff unless
it's my planning day or I'm likereally deep into some works.
I only focus on what's thisweek, because that's how I
personally avoid the overwhelmof being a startup founder.
(13:17):
Because, if you think, abouteverything all the time.
Rajesh (13:20):
You're just overwhelmed.
Yuli (13:21):
Right right.
Rajesh (13:23):
And that often creates fear, and then you just sort of
get stuck, you know exactly.
What I love about you know,discovering your organization is
that you have an amazingback-office system.
So people and that's one of mybig recommendations have your
plans that you need to havesystems.
You cannot do this on the backof a cigarette packet, as the
(13:47):
old saying goes.
It's a good place to start, butin our modern day world where
everything is so interconnectedemails, social appointments
having a back office system thatyou invest time to keep up to
date, to love and to look afterbecause you do need to love it.
When you love it, it loves youback.
Yuli (14:09):
Well, thank you for this great compliment and, honestly,
that's how we build Healist.
We build it with lots of loveand lots of good energy and high
vibrations to infuse into thishealing space.
Because I know that tools andadmin and back office is not the
favorite places where healerslike to be right, yeah, so when
(14:32):
we build those tools, we keepthat in mind, that it has to be
super easy, super user friendly,speaking in their language and
this is my pleasure of buildingthe software is how I found, you
know, this perfect combinationof being the geek that I am,
just like you, and being alsothis productivity perfectionist
(14:55):
a little bit right.
I like to be efficient.
I like things to flow.
I don't like to do dumb tasksthat technology can do.
I wouldn't utilize my highestpotential as a human, so as much
as I can outsource totechnology, I love doing that.
So I try to bring all of thatinto the holistic healing world
that you know and bridge thatgap and show people that you can
(15:20):
actually really improve yourlife Right.
It's not just something toolsthat you can intimidate by or be
overwhelmed by every day andjust dread about doing.
Rajesh (15:30):
You know how I look at these tools, you know, because
I'm a bit of a tech boy and I douse, apart from Asana and
Salesforce, some other tools.
I look at those as an extensionof my creativity completely.
I'm a creative person but I'vegot to funnel that somewhere,
I've got to commit that todigital paper or whatever.
(15:54):
So these, these apps anddifferent things I use are and
it's such a wonderful extensionof my creativity and they
embrace my creativity and theyallow me to express it in
another way that's amazing.
Yuli (16:09):
Yes, I love to.
I love this analogy and youknow it.
Definitely, those are tools ofexpression, like you said and
you know.
Since you mentioned also someof the CRM tools and again for
our listeners who may be notfamiliar, salesforce is a great
example of a CRM tool that is, aclient relationship management
platform.
(16:29):
There's again many others andthey range from something that
is similar to like pen and paperand Excel spreadsheet or the
Google Sheets, for example, tomore sophisticated tools like
Salesforce, who also integratewith other systems like email,
like if you're using MailChimpor one of the email sender
(16:50):
providers, they might integratewith that.
And the beauty of those toolsreally that they connect all the
customer data from differentplaces and allow you to not just
organize it and manage it, butthen also work with it
proactively in a more creativeways and really tailor messaging
and personalize it.
So can you talk a little bitabout how your organization is
(17:14):
working with some of those tools?
Rajesh (17:17):
Yeah, I suppose one of the focus beyond the creativity
is we're lead generating, aren'twe?
We want new customers, notalways from a commercial sense.
We want to spread our messagethat we want to help people.
You know, I see, ourorganization is basically
founded in serving humanity.
(17:38):
That is, that is our coremission.
So everything else you know,the, the social posts and
everything you know, we do wantto generate leads, but the
purpose of that is to have morepeople that we can educate into
our system.
We can teach them to meditatein our unique system, and we
(18:01):
know their lives are going to bemuch better because of that.
So obviously, we have bills,like everyone else.
So there has to be somecommercial year, and I'm never
embarrassed about that becauseeveryone has bills.
You know it still costs you tosend one email, regardless of
(18:22):
you know we see that as beingfree.
So we need to generate income.
Obviously, our purpose is, youknow, to connect with those
people, to help them, to servethem, etc.
But that's all under theumbrella of what I call lead
generation.
So for any business, you cannotneglect this.
You've got to be on it almostevery day if you can.
(18:47):
Or, again, you will portioncertain times where you're going
to look at your posts.
You know what do I say here.
How can I attract new customers?
Do I need to pay foradvertising?
Is it appropriate to pay foradvertising now?
Is this the right time?
So we all go through thosecontinual questions about how do
we put ourselves in a good wayin front of other people.
(19:12):
I'm very, you know, protectiveof my brand.
Everything that I producesocially or on our website is
very brand focused, and I thinkthat's very important.
You are unique.
Whether you're a healer,whether you're.
You have a unique skill.
Therefore, you are your ownbrand and it's very good that
(19:33):
you continue to preserve thatbrand.
Think about that brand.
Don't keep changing it, becauseit really confuses people who
you are.
Get really solid about yourbrand and then bring it forward.
Bring it forward more and more.
So, you know, in our longevity,we've only really had one logo
change in that sort of 50 years,so to speak, and our brand is
(19:56):
consistent.
Everything we do, even if wepost a picture, it will have a
little logo somewhere on it, etc.
So that people can identifythat eventually with us.
But any business we've just gotto commit and it can be really,
this is probably the mostchallenging part of any business
(20:16):
, whether you're a commercialbusiness or you're a non-profit
how do I get new customers?
So we've got to allocate, we'vegot to read, we've got to learn
, we've got to learn what'sgoing to fit well in our arena.
How often should we post, etc.
Just to maintain it?
Our arena, how often should wepost, etc.
Just to maintain it?
(20:37):
But I think again, do not getobsessive about this, but be
active.
You can't just go for threemonths and not say anything or
post anything or do an advertand then accept customers.
It ain't going to happen.
You've got to raise yourpresence, you've got to raise
your profile and you've got tospend, I would say, an hour and
(21:00):
a day thinking about that.
Seriously, it doesn't have tobe every day, but maybe like
three days a week.
You're thinking right, what do Ido?
How do I get new customers?
Where do my customers live?
How do I find them?
What's their demographia?
Are they mainly female?
Are they between these certainages?
(21:22):
Does my messaging embrace them?
Does it attract them?
I think, lead generation.
I've had my good times and I'vehad my really bad times when I
just thought, oh God, nothing isworking, you know, and
sometimes that's just a lessonon refocusing, relooking at it
(21:43):
or just keeping on becauseyou're not in control of all so
many other elements, you know.
So it really, again, it's thattime commitment, it's that focus
that we need to just carry onamazing well.
Yuli (21:59):
Thank you for sharing all those insights and just to add
from my end a little bit aswe're, we're all in the same
boat, no matter what businessyou are we're also working on.
You know.
This podcast actually is a leadgeneration strategy for us.
It is a creative outlet for me.
Don't get me wrong, it's one ofmy really favorite things to do
in this business and I so muchlook forward to that.
(22:22):
But it's been also anincredible lead magnet, right?
Because the people that findthis podcast they most likely
are our audience and at somepoint they want to check out
Healist and what we do and theymight then take maybe some of
our workshops.
They sign up for a platform,they become part of our network
(22:44):
and eventually they upgrade toour paid subscription.
This is the funnel and we allget creative.
And another important point isyou have to All get creative.
And another important point isyou have to diversify your lead
channels so we can't put all ofour eggs in this podcast bucket
because as much as it's great,it's only limited to a certain
audience.
(23:04):
So you kind of have to testyour audience in different
channels and fine tune but atthe same time kind of stay alive
on many of them.
That's what I find important,because the different people
that are going to come throughpodcasts tune but at the same
time kind of stay alive on manyof them.
That's what I find important,because the different people
that are going to come throughpodcasts is not going to be the
same people are going to comethrough email marketing or
social media and you kind ofwant to reach them all.
Rajesh (23:26):
Yeah, it's like every avenue is almost like a unique
channel and you have to servethat unique channel.
Yuli (23:33):
Right, but some of them are also great and just kind of
what we call nurturing leads ifwe're getting further into
marketing terminology, right,which I embrace, I love having,
by the way I love having aconversation with someone like
yourself who is deeply spiritualand has a great mission to
impact the world.
But we can also get intoconversations about leads in a
(23:53):
different sense.
Yes, definitely, definitely,absolutely.
Mission to impact the world,but we can also get into
conversations about the business.
Rajesh (23:55):
Yeah, yes, definitely definitely, absolutely, you know
.
That's why we we go back aboutsystems to help you do that.
You know putting.
I think one of the mostimportant things is when someone
is engaged with you.
That's not the only engagement.
If you can put them on somesort of marketing drip and
programs like MailChimp arecheap, they're included Spend a
(24:19):
couple of hours looking at thosevideos and then, when you've
interacted with someone, they'llgo on a journey for six or
seven weeks where you tell themgood stuff about you.
Obviously, they can unsubscribeif they want to, providing that
you've subscribed through aconversation or through email,
(24:43):
and then you just keep drip,feeding that information.
It's so, so important.
In our system.
All our leads come intoSalesforce and then they get
updated and that automaticallytalks to MailChimp and we'll put
them on a journey, depending onwhere they are, etc.
So we've got that all automated, so I don't have to worry about
(25:05):
that.
I think well, okay, this personattended an intro talk.
They didn't take any action.
Are they going to learn with us?
We put them on a different typeof drip to basically say well,
you attended, you know somethingabout this.
So here's some more informationthat's complementary to what
you've already heard, or we gotthis sort of cold.
You know that they may havefilled out a form just asking
(25:29):
for more information and then weput them on, you know, a colder
drip which talks more abouttheir pain and how we can help
them with that, etc.
Yuli (25:38):
That's a great, great point.
And, again, thanks for sharingthose strategies, because I
think it's really important aswe think about our audience and
our clients.
And when I say clients orcustomers, it's anyone who has
ever been exposed to work,basically, For practitioners.
It's someone who, yes, may havebeen your client for many years
, but there's all those otherpeople that are potential
(26:00):
clients, right, that could turninto a client, and this is a
very important group to workwith.
And within this group, you canhave different layers, right.
You can have people that youhad a very brief conversation
with.
Or you can have people that youknow maybe attended like
different workshops or classesthat you had a very brief
conversation with.
Or you can have people that youknow maybe attended like
different workshops or classesthat you taught, but now you
want to try to interest them inyour one-on-one services.
(26:24):
So, all those different groups,it's so important to have a
system to identify and tagproperly.
Because once you've done that,and even if you're working with
just Excel spreadsheet, justhave different columns, come up
with different names for thembut put them in different
buckets, because if you canpersonalize their journeys, this
(26:44):
is gold.
This is where you win.
This is when people stopunsubscribing.
They're actually opening youremails, they're actually reading
them, they're actually takingaction.
Rajesh (26:56):
I think it can be simple as hot, warm and cold.
But you know they've been intouch with you a few times.
It looks like you know theywant your services.
You know in that moment they'revery interested.
So they're hot.
Warm is like they might beslightly indifferent, they
haven't had too much engagement,and then put them then on a
warm list and then obviously acold list means they've had very
usual engagement with you andyou need to warm them up.
(27:18):
You make them warmer and getthem hot.
Very simple and works.
It's very simple.
Honestly, you know peoplecomplicate marketing.
It's really simple.
At the end of the day, keep itsimple, because if you don't
keep it simple, you just won't.
You won't manage it.
It'll just become sooverbearing that you'll just
(27:39):
give up, and that that's oftenwhy people just give up.
Sometimes, import is the bestyou know as far as marketing.
Keep it really simple.
As you evolve, you can make itmore sophisticated, you can
increase it, you can get peopleto help you, but obviously today
we have the wonders of ai.
So I I'm keen, I do use ai.
(28:01):
I'm, I'm.
I think it's an amazing tool.
I will normally write most ofmy stuff, but I might pass it
through ai to say what do youthink this is this?
You know this is the audience.
You know these people are hotaudience.
You know these people are hot.
You know, is this a goodmessage for hot people?
So use the tools that are there, that are free, to continue
(28:21):
your journey, to keep your focusthere.
Yuli (28:24):
Absolutely, and I could agree more about AI in terms of
improving and optimizing yourmessaging.
It often has suggestions that Iwould never think about.
I know it's so clever.
Rajesh (28:38):
Especially, like not all of us.
You know I'm used to writingand I love writing and I think I
do it reasonably well.
But you know, some people sayto me I could never write
because my grammar isn't good.
And I said, no, don't worry,just write it right into GBT or
Gemini and just ask them tocorrect the grammar.
You're done in one second.
(28:58):
You don't have to struggle withthat.
You know, keep it simple.
Yuli (29:02):
Absolutely.
As someone who is, you know,english is my third language.
I can attest that I've beenwriting way more since I have
had GBT, because I was just veryself-conscious about my grammar
.
It would take so much time,with different tools, to try to
correct it that I eventuallywould give up.
And now suddenly I can producecontent that I'm not ashamed of
(29:24):
because I don't want to have.
Rajesh (29:27):
I must interject a bit of a funny story here, because
when I was young I mean, as youcan tell, I'm from the UK, I
grew up in London Educationalstandards through the time that
I was at high school weren'tgreat and really weird.
We're the base of the Englishlanguage and we weren't taught
proper grammar.
So when I got together with mywife my wife was a foreigner.
(29:49):
My wife was from Trinidad inthe Caribbean we came to London.
My wife was from Trinidad inthe Caribbean.
We came to London.
She came to London and I met herthere and she had the most
perfect grammar because she'dbeen learned abroad and grammar
had been taught to themperfectly Well.
I can honestly tell you that Iwas trying to write all this
stuff you know, newsletters andthings and we nearly had
(30:12):
divorces about where commercewent.
She was like I can't speak yourEnglish and you don't know
where it's for the commerce.
You know I had to learn that.
Now I write really well, but Istruggle with that so much, so
much so you can improve inwhatever you're doing.
Yuli (30:30):
You know you can improve from what you're doing
Absolutely Well.
I love those stories.
Where, where do we go from here?
I feel like we know we're onsuch a path of really uh, diving
deep into a lot of themarketing and systems and
business strategies and it'sjust so insightful and hopefully
inspires many of our listenersto take action.
(30:51):
You know I want to talk alittle bit about the subject of
business, competition and theholistic business and you know
this whole idea because I thinkwhen also things get slow or
maybe tough or, you know, startmaybe questioning our path,
there's the inevitablecomparison that comes in right.
(31:13):
It's part of that cloud.
Rajesh (31:17):
Yes, yes, definitely.
Yuli (31:19):
So how do you, especially for organization?
It's been so many years andyou've seen this space evolving
so much just in the last fewyears, all of a sudden, you know
, going from just a fewmeditation schools out there,
just a couple of meditationtechniques, now there's hundreds
, right, yeah, how?
Rajesh (31:39):
do you?
Yuli (31:40):
thrive in this environment .
Rajesh (31:42):
Yeah, what was the big I can honestly say upset for us
is when mindfulness came in fullblast, because there is a big
difference between mindfulnessand meditation.
Full blast, because there is abig difference between
mindfulness and meditation andthis, you know, it was more
about mental health andmindfulness and using meditation
as a tool.
So there was a lot of mixedmessaging at this time.
(32:05):
But it took off and, to behonest, we were almost left
behind because it took off andwe weren't teaching mindfulness,
we were teaching meditation,though they are closely related.
So we had to look again atsublings all these people
teaching mindfulness.
(32:25):
Where do we sit in all of thisnow?
It was a very difficult time.
I'm going back about ten yearswhen all this sort of you know
started here in the US with youknow, with different mindfulness
teachers, and it sort of spreadaround the world.
It's changed now.
Meditation has a much higherprofile than mindfulness, you
(32:46):
know.
So it's reverted back and I'mreally happy about that because
you know who is observing who.
In mindfulness, you know you'remeant to think about day, but
who is the observer at the endof the day?
It's still you.
The meditation endears you withthat knowingness of yourself in
(33:06):
such a deep way that you arethe observer.
Okay, it's not your mind, it'sa deeper aspect of you that's
observing.
Sorry, I digress no, don't besorry this is all part of the
yeah so when this, when thistook off, it was like why do we
sit?
You know, we seem to have.
You know, no one seems to wantus anymore, and they were.
(33:29):
They were really difficultyears, but we held fast because,
at the end of the day, what wedo is quite unique, and that's
what I want to get across toyour listeners.
There's only one you.
It sounds a bit of a cliche Now.
We hear this all the time.
There's only one, you.
There's only someone who hasyour experience, but we have to
(33:50):
celebrate that.
If we've done all that we spokeabout before, if we have the
passion to help others, we wantto make a change in the world.
Yes, of course we want to earna living and support ourselves
and our family.
Nothing wrong with that.
That's part of it and I'm surewe'll talk about that.
That's the big point.
You know the balance betweenthe material and the spiritual
(34:11):
which confuses so, so manypeople.
The important thing is stick toyour guns.
If you know, this is correct.
Yes, look at what everyone elseis doing, learn from what
they're doing, because theremight be some gems in there that
you haven't thought about, orthings have evolved and you've
stood still a bit.
So you need to move forward.
(34:32):
But essentially go back to I amunique, my offering is unique.
Yes, there is a tribe for meout there.
I just now have to be a bitmore clever in how I connect
with that tribe.
How do I put my head above theball pit, so to speak?
How do I show my uniqueness?
And all that is completelypossible with your messaging.
(34:56):
So, like we have a new websitethat I rewrote completely to
bring it sort of up to date, andI'm thinking, well, I've come
to New York, oh, my God, there'sso many people doing meditation
.
How do I raise my head aboutthat?
How do I show my authority?
But I think I've managed thatbecause when I read back sort of
(35:17):
trying to be as objective as Ican, even though I'm the author,
I bring it back and go tryingto be as objective as I can,
even though I'm the author, Ibring it back to that.
How will people think aboutthis?
You know, am I showing myauthority here?
And that's what we need to do.
If you're good at something, ifyou're good enough to say I'm a
healer, I've got something.
I can help people.
You have to focus on that.
(35:38):
You have to show your authority, that this, whatever you do,
lies especially with you and youcan help others because of it.
Yuli (35:48):
It's beautifully said.
Rajesh (35:50):
Thank you.
Yuli (35:52):
Yes, I had a moment to digest that and integrate, but
no, and you mentioned also avery important topic of
balancing spiritual and material, which I would love to get your
message across, because youstrike me as somebody who is
(36:12):
very well balanced in the areaand I love meeting, like I said
before, people in the space thatare deeply grounded and figured
out all the conflicts andblocks around this issue, that
we can talk a lot about thehistory, where it's coming from
(36:32):
and how long it's been around,and each of us also have unique
backgrounds that add to that.
But it's something that Ireally see as one of the mission
for my company, even though, ifyou look at it as a platform
and technology platform andsystems and practice management
tools, but I really see one ofour deepest missions is to help
(36:56):
healers balance this spiritualversus material area and I would
love to have your take on thatokay.
Rajesh (37:06):
Well, normally when I, when I talk publicly about the
situation, because it get usoften, like you know, I'm
working and I have money, but Iwant to live a spiritual life
and for me the spiritual,material worlds are the same,
are the same, I think you knowwe have the material world to
(37:32):
help us have greater tangibilitywith the more abstract
spiritual divine.
So we need to go.
So the material side of life ismore concrete, so we go through
the concrete to reach theabstract.
I'm going to talk about lovehere because that's very, you
know, essential.
Part of what I teach is, forinstance, like you know, why,
(37:54):
why do we love someone else?
You know, why do we, why do weneed to be loved, why do we
crave that love?
To love someone else and beloved?
It's simply because that divineforce is so abstract to many
people.
Those that are more unfoldedget more in tune with it and we
understand it better, we live iteventually.
(38:15):
So, through the love that youhave for someone else, it's like
that is the object of your loveand that lifts you from the
material or from the lowerlevels into something far more
abstract and through that we getto know those divine forces the
(38:36):
universe, god, far moreeffectively.
So so I always say through theconcrete we reach the abstract,
and that concrete is materialism.
Now, when we look in our world,the person who's totally
materially focused is a such,because they cannot understand
that abstract.
So therefore they're focusingon the material.
(38:58):
But hopefully, as they gothrough that material
materialism will lift them intothe higher echelons and they
will, you know, experiencedivinity, god, whatever we want
to call it.
So in business we have thatsame thing the material has to
exist, but it is a vehiclethrough which we can raise our
(39:24):
services, we can raise ourmission, etc.
So people do get this very like.
They'll come to us and say okay, you're a non-profit, so why
are you charging for yourcourses?
Why are they not free?
Um, I think we have learned andI'm really pleased to share
this is those that don't paynever stay.
(39:45):
And that is one adage we havein FISU, because one year on our
25th anniversary, we taught forfree for a year and in one
central lane we taught 600people.
Only 10 of those ever remained.
(40:06):
And I think again, it's like ifyou put your hand in your pocket
, you're slightly more committed.
You know, even if it's smallamounts.
It doesn't have to be largeamounts, etc.
So we learned this Don't beembarrassed, make sure your
charges are affordable to theaudience that you're targeting,
etc.
And there's no problem in thesense that you need to earn a
(40:27):
living from this, but you haveto be, as such, focused on that.
But for me, to do my work, it'slike my organization.
I can't do my work, I can't payfor advertising, I can't pay
for the rent of this placeunless I have income.
So that is completelyfundamental to my mission and
(40:48):
therefore it must all remain inbalance.
I think the danger is okay, youcould be earning a lot of money
.
What do you do with that money?
Again, these are all human,personal judgments we make on
ourselves, aren't we?
How material am I?
Do I need to buy that, etc.
You know, I always love mygirls.
(41:10):
Use the analogy like if you canhave a rolls royce, have it,
but do not be attached to it.
So if it went to more own, youcouldn't pay the installments or
the tax or whatever and you hadto go back.
You wouldn't be devastated, etc.
(41:30):
And I think, if we have thatsame attitude in life, that
everything around us is really agift, even the material things.
I have a home, a car and thosethings.
I feel so blessed to have themand I look at them.
Sometimes when I go from thestation and see my little car
park there, I think, god, it'sso good to me, I've got this
(41:51):
wonderful little car.
So many in the world don't havethose sort of luxuries.
So it's really appreciatingwhat you have, not necessarily
craving for more.
I mean, yes, if you have afamily, your kids need shoes and
you know you've got to havemoney to do that and nothing
wrong in that at all.
(42:12):
But what is your motivation?
That's the question.
What motivates you?
What is the end goal?
One thing I love about Americathat is not so prominent in
Europe is there's a lot moregiving here.
They encourage you to give, tobe more open with charities,
with non-profits, etc.
(42:34):
I really love that in the USculture that's not so prominent
in Europe.
My English people are verygenerous, but it's not.
It's something that isn't saidas much, something that's not as
public.
So again, have what you want.
If you are working to buy a newhouse, what's wrong with that,
(42:57):
you know?
I would see that as a spiritualventure because you have to
have somewhere to live in thisworld that we live in.
That's so, so necessary, but donot be attached to it.
You know, if you've got a RollsRoyce and you're driving down
the street and you're thinkingall swanky, everyone's looking
at me because I've got thiswonderful car You're attached to
(43:19):
it.
You have created attachments.
So if someone scratches yourcar in the car park, you're
going to be.
You have created attachments.
So if someone scratches yourcar in the car park, you're
going to be super upset becauseyou have those attachments.
So if we can live more like Ineed to provide the certain
things I need to do to exist, tofulfill my mission.
But that's not going to be theend.
I'm'm not just there to youknow, fill my pocket.
Yuli (43:43):
Amazing, amazing message and resonates so much.
I can't believe we're runningout of time almost and I wanted
to give you an opportunity.
I mean, it was a reallywonderful conversation.
I feel like we could talk foranother hour, but I really
wanted to give you anopportunity to share more about
your mission and what you do andanything else you want to share
with our incredible audience ofholistic healers yeah, well, I
(44:07):
think you know.
Rajesh (44:08):
Again, one important message is you need time to rest
, you need time to center withinyourself.
Meditation is a perfect toolfor doing that.
Remember, meditation takes youfrom the surface levels into
that deep peace within, andrelaxation is the door to our
(44:30):
higher self.
So when we learn to relax, alsoin the deeper areas of ourself,
is strength, and when we gothrough meditation within
ourselves, we feel stronger, weincrease our self-esteem.
That helps our confidence.
So in business, running anorganization dealing with people
, we're much on it.
(44:51):
It's so much easier for us westop worrying.
Yes, there's a differencebetween concern and worry.
We have difficulties in life weshould be concerned with, but
we need to stop worrying becausethat goes nowhere.
So many people are totallystressed and anxious and their
minds are whirling the whole day, and that's creating so much
(45:14):
energy that depletes theirphysical energy, leads to
disease.
The meditation is just anincredible tool.
In my system, every person thatcomes to learn receives their
own individual mantra, which isbased on their vibration.
So if we were to condense youmentally, physically, mentally,
(45:37):
back into sound value, becausewe're basically atoms that are
vibrating and we vibrate at acertain frequency and that
frequency for each of us isunique, which is confirmed by
the iris in our eye, our DNA andour fingerprints.
So, even though we're relatedas the brotherhood of man, we
(45:58):
found our own individuality ofman.
We found our own individuality.
So my organization's mission isto take you from individuality
to universality and give you allthe benefits that outfall
meditation gives you when youpractice regularly.
Yuli (46:18):
Amazing.
Well, thank you for being thereand really dedicating your life
to this incredible mission.
I'm very privileged andgrateful to have you on this
podcast and not just sharingyour beautiful spiritual
teachings, but also diving deepinto some of those behind the
scenes aspects of thosespiritual businesses but not
(46:40):
many people talk about or evenopen to talking about.
So I'm really, really excitedabout this conversation and I
think sharing some of this dataand talking about topics like
the material and spiritual andsharing some of your learnings
is going to be really beneficialfor a lot of our listeners.
Rajesh (46:59):
I really hope so.
We're all going to.
As I said at the beginning,we're all going to have
challenges and difficult times.
Soldier through, have yourfocus, remember your mission,
rest, have time to be objective,to rest and just do a great job
, be successful.
Yuli (47:18):
Amazing.
Thank you again and see yousoon.
Rajesh (47:21):
Thank you for having me.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.