---
title: "Breaking Barriers, Building Futures"
episode: 144
date: 2025-01-23
guest: "Sandeep Amar Guppta"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/144-breaking-barriers-building-futures
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-144/audio.mp3
---

# Breaking Barriers, Building Futures

Joanne Lockwood speaks with transformational coach and chartered accountant Sandeep Amar Gupta about what it takes to build businesses that grow without losing their humanity. Together they explore the relationship between the external world of actions and results, and the inner world of values, purpose, and consciousness. Sandeep distinguishes spirituality from religion and frames it as a universal journey from self-centredness towards selflessness. He connects this to organisational life, describing businesses as having three interlinked layers: people as the “soul”, culture as the “mind”, and operational activity as the “body”. The conversation challenges short-term, profit-only leadership and argues for systems thinking, ethical strategy, and long-term value creation. They also discuss practical leadership behaviours that shape culture: how fear-based management can trigger threat responses and shut down learning, why supportive conversations improve performance, and how co-creating team vision and values can increase commitment and results. The episode closes with reflections on learning through setbacks, adapting to change, and aligning individual strengths with a rapidly evolving world of work.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Introduction and Welcome
- 01:00 — Inclusion Bites: Conversations on belonging and transformation.
- 03:34 — India's diverse genetics favour global drug testing.
- 08:48 — Identifying barriers helps unleash one's potential.
- 12:53 — Soul reflects values, essence, purpose, connection.
- 13:35 — "Organisation's success relies on people, culture, ethics."
- 18:48 — Human relationships impact business reputation significantly.
- 20:43 — Value relationships; they define your brand's perception.
- 24:48 — Belief in human potential and positive interaction.
- 28:38 — Unified team's vision, mission, values; improved collaboration.
- 31:46 — Centre point: self-preservation and a better world.
- 34:28 — Pause between reaction and response to stimuli.
- 37:09 — Learning through failure and personal accountability.
- 41:28 — Helping client grow; balancing honesty diplomatically.
- 44:52 — Spirituality and economics unite, enhancing human flourishing.
- 46:20 — Transition from industrial to knowledge and virtual.
- 52:24 — Gratitude for listeners: Join Inclusion Bites community.
- 53:14 — Promoting inclusivity, episode by episode.

## Key takeaways

- The significance of recognising and balancing the 'dual worlds' of external actions and inner values.
- The universal nature of spirituality and its distinction from religion, dispelling common Western misconceptions.
- The idea of organisations possessing a soul, where inner truths, values, and purposes shape humane actions.
- A critique of modern management practices and the call for systemic thinking, with examples from top companies.
- The importance of integrating people, culture, and business operations in organisations for sustainable and ethical growth.
- Practical applications of the AOPA (Attention, Observation, Pause, Acceptance) formula for personal and professional development.
- Viewing failures as learning opportunities, and the impact of positive and negative brand experiences on customer loyalty.

## FAQs

### What is the 'Dual Worlds' Concept?

The 'Dual Worlds' concept, discussed by Sandeep Amar Gupta, refers to the coexistence of the external world, characterised by actions and results, and the inner world of love, consciousness, and values. Sandeep asserts that the inner world directly influences the external outcomes.

### How does spirituality differ from religion, according to the podcast?

Joanne Lockwood and Sandeep Amar Gupta discuss the common Western misunderstanding that spirituality is synonymous with religion. They clarify that spirituality is universal and distinct from religion, representing a journey from selfishness to selflessness, while religion typically involves structured beliefs and practices.

### What does it mean for an organisation to have a 'soul'?

An organisation with a 'soul' is one that embodies inner truth, values, and purpose, which are reflected in its humane actions and ethical strategies. Such organisations integrate people (soul), culture (mind), and business operations (body) to create societal value, as characterised by the metaphor of the body, mind, and soul used by Sandeep.

### What is Sandeep's critique of modern management?

Sandeep criticises modern management for its short-sightedness and impatience, advocating for a holistic approach that considers ethical strategies and societal value creation. He calls for systemic thinking and highlights the success of companies like Apple and Google as examples of this approach.

### How does research support the integration of human values in business?

Sandeep cites research by Sisodia Raj, demonstrating that companies embracing human values achieve significant growth compared to others. This underlines the importance of viewing business as a socio-economic relationship among founders, supporters, and consumers.

### Can you provide an example of how brand experience impacts customer loyalty?

Sandeep illustrates this with a story about Rolls Royce and an Indian king, showing how a negative experience, such as a disrespectful encounter, can harm a brand's reputation. This demonstrates that interactions significantly impact customer loyalty and brand value.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world? Remember, everyone not only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo and share stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or to join me on the show. So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bytes. And today is episode 144 with the title Breaking Barriers, Building Futures. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Sandeep Amar Guppta. Sandeep is a transformational coach and speaker who empowers leaders and professionals to overcome growth barriers and create meaningful futures through an integrated approach blending spiritual insight, human potential and economic strategies. When I asked Sandeep to describe his superpower, he said it is his ability to bridge ancient wisdom and modern thought in order to unlock human potential. Hello, Sandeep, welcome to the show. Hi, Jo. I'm very excited to be here. Thank

Sandeep Amar Gupta: you very much for inviting me and I love being here. Thank you. We were chatting in the green

Joanne Lockwood: room before we went live that I'm based in the UK and you're based in which part of India? I am based in the

Sandeep Amar Gupta: northern part of India, the capital of India. That's New Delhi. And at present it is cold and getting colder, but nothing like what you experience in UK. This is about 10 degrees where I am in the south of the UK.

Joanne Lockwood: What's New Delhi like at this time of year in December? New Delhi this

Sandeep Amar Gupta: time would be something like 14, 15, goes down to approximately 8, 9 in the early morning hours. But this is the pattern, you know, which continues while where you are, the temperature will continue to fall. It won't fall so much as far as Delhi is concerned, but we do have the Himalayas where it's snowing. It goes to minus 30, 40. But Delhi, where I am, is quite comfortable, you know, in the winters. India itself is

Joanne Lockwood: almost a continent in its own right. It's a massive country. We often don't appreciate it when we're in the northern hemisphere. Just think about it, it's down there somewhere, but really It's a massive place in its own right with a massive population. Was it 23, 20 something states within, in India? Well, 32 states,

Sandeep Amar Gupta: you're right. India is a very ancient country, one of the oldest traditions it has and it has everything right from the mountains to the seas to the deserts to the forest to the rainforest. Diversity of culture. All colours are here. And surprisingly, let me tell you one thing, you know, India became a hotbed for clinical trials, you know, a couple of years back. Why? The genetic composition of India has got genes from virtually all the races across the globe in India. So if you, you know, evaluate a drug in the Indian subcontinent and in, in, and in India in particular, you can be rest assured it is going to work at least in 60, 70% of the world population. So India is a fantastic country. A lot of history, a lot of colour, a lot of romance, a lot of movies. You name it and we have it. Well, I'm not necessarily a fan of the

Joanne Lockwood: Bollywood, but I'm well aware of the Bollywood culture, the dance, the colour, the vibrancy. I'm a great fan of Indian dancing. That's the way people move their fingers and their arms and they get with the rhythm. And I'm transfixed sometimes watching Indian dancing because it's so culturally different to Western dancing and move. It's a, it's a very deliberate dance, isn't it? I think very rhythmic and transfixed sometimes.

Sandeep Amar Gupta: Well, I've seen dance anywhere in the world is transfixing if done inherently. We are made to move inherently. Excuse me. As for the ancient Indian wisdom, what is flowing inside us? It is the sound waves. And why do we dance? When we align or the sounds in the external world, they align with our internal sounds. Dancing is automatic, I believe, world over, be it in the Africa or UK or anywhere, dancing is transfixing if done properly. Yeah, I

Joanne Lockwood: agree. Even as long as you in your head when you're dancing, you have this vision. I think it doesn't matter what you look like when you dance, it's how you feel on the inside when you dance. If you let yourself feel for that freedom, let go of the shackles of expectations. Dancing is a way of losing yourself into the rhythm of the music or the mood, isn't it? You're absolutely right, Jo. And let me share a recent experience.

Sandeep Amar Gupta: You know, when I was young, I was fond of dancing and I would dance at the every opportunity, you know, but as our societies are, when you grow up, you say, oh, you should not dance, you should not do this, you should not do that. That was very much prevalent in a certain segment in India. So every time I would go to a party, every time I would hear good music, internally, I felt like dancing, but something used to hold me. So despite wanting to dance, I was not dancing. And I think this happens to a lot of people. On the 29th of the last month, I was invited to a party. There was a dance floor and the host said, you got to dance. And I was wanting to dance, but something was holding me back. Inhibitions. And then I said, I got to do it and I went and danced and people said, you danced well. So, you know, I. I'm going to write a post on this thing. I just got the photographs today. What does it take to break inhibitions? One thought and one step. That is all. Yeah. Thinking and then take action effectively, isn't it?

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, yeah. And you know, when you

Sandeep Amar Gupta: said thinking and taking action. Let me share another very important example which I give. I'm using the word important, the relationship between knowledge and action. It's the relationship of a bullet and a gun. If you're in danger, I give you a bullet, it has got no value. If I give you a gun, don't give you a bullet. Again, it has got no value. But the moment I give you the gun and the bullet, it becomes. Becomes powerful.

Joanne Lockwood: It changes the skill to fire it and the skill and knowledge to fire it as well. That goes. Yes, that is

Sandeep Amar Gupta: true in the skill. But what I'm trying to say and why was I drawn to your podcast or this talk? Inclusiveness. And this is one example of inclusiveness where you bring knowledge and action together, you make them inclusive, you become a powerhouse. Yes. Yeah, I think you're right.

Joanne Lockwood: Without action, they're just thoughts, they're just dreams, they're just want to be. Action turns them from those inaction into something tangible, something that can change, create, develop. And I think we see that too much. Everyone wants. Without the action, it just becomes a dream. That is true. That is true. And in my work, in my

Sandeep Amar Gupta: practise as a breaking growth barrier or a transformative coach, this is the main thing. I find that people are capable, they have all the potential, but something is holding them back. And when you help them to remove what is holding them back, they unleash their potential. But the question is identification of what is holding them. And I find that most of the people, or majority of the people, and even the coaches to a large extent, falter over here. They don't realise we live in two worlds simultaneously. The external World, which is the world in which we are born, we breathe, take actions, results manifest for us. And our inner world, our inner world of love, our inner world of aspirations, our inner world of beauty, values, experiences, consciousness, etc. Etc. Our inner world drives that external world. A lot of

Joanne Lockwood: what you're saying there relates to spirituality, doesn't it? It's the inner sense of self, our inner peace, our inner happiness. And something that I think is lost in the Western world often is spirituality. We get confused between religion and spirituality and being in connection with ourselves, with our surroundings, with the people around us. How do you start to understand that aspect of your culture? And how do you use that cultural element to sort of develop your thinking in terms of business? First of all,

Sandeep Amar Gupta: I would like to make a small correction. The west has not lost spirituality. West is equally spiritual like the East. Only thing is, spirituality is a spectrum. You might be standing on a starting station, I might be standing on a station which is much more advanced. But you are also journeying. So am I. That is the east and the West. Spirituality is an inherent part of the human existence. Now why do I say Suzhou? There are three words. Spirit, spiritual and spirituality. You agree with me. We all have souls. Yeah, I'm not religious, but I believe that I have a soul. Yes, you have a soul. I'm not talking of religion, I'm just not talking of religion. And spirituality and religion, they're two different things. You have a soul. That is the spirit. That is the spirit in whatever. It gets poured, it's got poured in the human body. So the human body becomes spiritual. And when we humans with the soul in our body, we start walking from gross selfishness. Me, me, me, I, I, I to gross selflessness. We are us. This journey is called spirituality. Why? Because what are the characteristics of the spirit? Love, mutuality, refulgence, intelligence, wisdom, good for all. And what are the characteristics of the body? Selfishness, organic satisfaction, organic survival and organic multiplication. The body does not know a fourth thing. This is the way nature has made us. And in between the body and the soul is our mind. The thought process which keeps on oscillating between the body and the mind and reacts depending at what was its position when the external stimulus comes in. If the mind was focusing more towards the body, when there's a stimulus, your reaction would be selfish. And if the mind was more towards the soul, your reaction would be selfless. So if you map your thoughts and actions for 24 hours, you will find inconsistency in them. I think you can tell when an organisation or

Joanne Lockwood: an individual as a soul operate and it's, I think for me a soul goes beyond the content, a restraint. It's soul is a bit, it's about your inner self, your inner truth, your inner being, your values, your brand, what you stand for. Just your whole essence and purpose in life comes out of your soul. And I often see this where I'm dealing with people or, or organisations where they don't connect that humanity to their actions. And I see great examples when people do that and I feel rewarded by interacting with those people. Jo,

Sandeep Amar Gupta: an organisation like the human body is divided in three parts, the soul, the mind and the body. Similarly, an organisation is divided in three parts the people. They are the soul of the organisation. On top of the people is the culture of the organisation and on top of the culture is the business, the transactional business which we do buying, selling, reporting, controlling relationships. Now the people, their values, their thoughts, they drive the culture of the organisation and the culture of the organisation decides and drives whether the business strategies are ethical or so the challenge arises, you know, in modern day management is they don't integrate the three, you got to integrate the three, you got to look at the larger picture, the whole picture. You've got to apply systems thinking, see what is impacting what and then take actions in business also know the chaos theory equally applies. But then today, unfortunately, our managers and leaders are so short sighted, they're so impatient, they want profits, they don't want to create value for society. And if you're ethical, which means you got the right culture and the right culture means if you have the right motivation and the right people in your team, then you start building value for the society. And now you'll agree with me, Jo, there are no free lunches. If you give something to someone, they would respond. So when you add value to society, you enter a very different league of business. Look at Apple, they added value to society. Look at Disney, Walt Disney, he added value to society. Look at Google, they added value to society. How can leaders in

Joanne Lockwood: organisations reconnect with this inner consciousness and awareness? Because I think sometimes what happens is we get caught up in our day to day activities. You mentioned becoming short sighted, becoming impatient, becoming target driven, becoming financial outcome driven and lose sight of the people. How do we step back? And when we, you know, hopefully we realise one day that we have lost sight, how do we stop and go back, figure it out again? Before I answer that question,

Sandeep Amar Gupta: let me share a very important empirical research results. You see, because of physics, chemistry, the science which we have been following for the last hundred years. We have become very data oriented in our thought process. Anything subjective has taken a backseat. Now, to get that subjectiveness back, I would like to present this data. It's a research done by Sisodia Raj. Sisodia was a professor in Wharton School and the research is called Friends of Endearment. Now what he did was he selected around 60 odd groups across the world which comprised of the S&P 500, the companies which were there on the S&P 500 and companies which also fell in the great to great Brit Greater index. And he shortlisted them on the basis of the human values they were following. If they were following human values in their business strategies, he shortlisted them. So he made a group of 60 odd companies who were following human values and business strategies and then he did an analysis of the valuation which they had achieved. Visa, Wiz S&P 500 average and the good to great average. Jo, you'll be surprised. These companies who were following human values, they had grown by 15x over a period of 10 years in comparison. Why? I offer a simple explanation for that. We got to look at business differently. What is business? Business is a socioeconomic relationship between three sets of people. Relationship between three sets of people. And who are the three sets? The people who establish the business, the owners, people who support the business, workers, banks, stakeholders. The third set, people who consume the services and the products of the business. These are the three sets of people who come together and make a business successful. And why does a business become successful when these three sets are together? Because they are helping each other to help themselves. This is very important. They're helping each other to help themselves. And since business is a socioeconomic relationship between three sets of human beings, so anything and everything which applies to a human being would also apply there. I ask everyone a simple question. You go to Harrods, it's the world renowned store, right? You buy something from there, you say, I've got it from Harrods. If the sales girl or the sales man misbehaves with you, shows you up, says, this is not a store for you, will you go back to Harrods? You will not. It's happened in India, like the Indian kings, you know, they were very rich when they used to go to England or Europe. Like this is a case of, I think the Collier king of Collier. He went to Europe, went to the Rolls Royce showroom, he was shooed away. Hey, hey, man, brown skin, go away, go away, you can't afford it. He was insulted. Then he said, buy all the cars in the showroom and tells us, ADC make the payment in cash. The salesman was taken aback. The manager was taken aback. They used to sell one car a month. Now here's a man standing saying, okay, buy 50 cars. And in front of them he says, now use them to pick up the waste in my kingdom. So obviously the Rolls Royce guys got disturbed. They said, what are cars which are supposed to be the premium cars, luxury cars, only the who's who use them and they are going to be used as municipal vans to pick up the trash of the city. They came and said, sorry and all that stuff, you know, and he said, okay, okay, I'll not do it. But this was an example of relationship going bad or making a relation, not focusing on the relationship. So personally, I believe whatever applies to human beings equally applies to businesses. Anecdote

Joanne Lockwood: story it's basically saying that you have to value people and the relationship because that is your brand, what your organisation stands for and how it will be judged. And if you treat people badly, you treat your customers without respect, then that sets the value of your brand. So when we talk about these various initiatives in business, diversity, inclusion, all these buzzwords we talk about, it's about how we treat people, how we make people feel about ourselves as an individual and ourselves as a brand, as an organisation. And it's what we stand for, which is part of what you're saying there. Because if a Rolls Royce is treated as a rubbish collection, it shows that's the value you associate with that brand. And that came from the way you were treated by the person you dealt with, not by the organisation, but by the person you dealt with. Because they set face off the brand, don't they? You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. And the other thing

Sandeep Amar Gupta: which leaders got to recognise, are they playing a game for immediate results or are they playing a game for long term results? If they're playing the game for immediate results, they could win, they could be rewarded, awarded, everything. But what happens tomorrow? You know, surprisingly, I was reading somewhere, Google, when they have the meetings, they don't talk on the numbers, they don't talk about money, they talk of what value would they be adding in the coming year to the product and people? Yeah, I think

Joanne Lockwood: what we often do is we focus on the wrong output. What are we trying to add? Is it just shareholder value or as you say, about creating something that's valuable to the world, the human species? It's

Sandeep Amar Gupta: actually both, you know, within the organisation, you've got to Create value for each other. Values you see, like a house. You don't. A stack of bricks does not build a house. You need cement or glue to put the bricks together and then it becomes a house. So in the team environment, you need ethics and values to bind people together into a team. You see, a person who is straightforward, believes in honesty, believes in truthfulness, believes in transparency. Do you think the person can work with someone who believes in nothing of these? Not really. Even if he or she takes the job, that will only be temporary because the needs might be surpassing, their needs might be surpassing, must be so pressing that they accept the job, but they leave the company at the first option. And leaders got to realise one thing, that losing a million pounds for a dollars is not so bad into losing a good worker. Yes,

Joanne Lockwood: yes. It's like the military thing, isn't it? A plane is replaceable but the pilot is not right. Exactly. This is a brilliant example.

Sandeep Amar Gupta: I remember hearing one of the top industrialists of India in our management conference, he said, when I make a loss of 10 million, I don't sleep for 10 nights. But when my senior manager leaves me, I don't sleep for 10 months. People said, why? He said, you're forgetting one thing. He was the guy who was producing the results for me. He has left me and joined someone else with him. He has taken all the trade secrets of mine. He knows exactly my weaknesses and strengths. To retain my position, I will need to work double and triple because now I also need to counter what he could do, which makes the situation more complex and difficult. So the system, you know of the pink slip. I don't like your face. Here's the pink slip. It's having its own repercussions. I'm a great believer that

Joanne Lockwood: inherently human beings are positive, want to contribute, want to do a great job, want to do great work. And it's often down to how they're treated, how they're interacted with. It sets the tone of their own sort of commitment and how they interact with organisations. I often feel that whilst the person has a knowledge that is valuable, I always see it as a personal failure if I'm not able to work with that person for a positive result. And it's not, as I say, it's not selfishly about what they. Their skills and knowledge. It's about the human side. I want that person to succeed and if they're not succeeding, what can I do to change that? It's kind of the attitude. I Now let me take it

Sandeep Amar Gupta: as if a leader was asking Me this question, right? What can I do to change that thing? The question is, how are you connecting with the person? Now let me get some neurobiology. The prefrontal cortex, which is the executive brain, the amygdala, which is the emotional brain. Now what happens? I am entering the cabin and I know my boss shouts at me, it causes pain. Now, since we are hardwired to avoid pain in any and every circumstance, the prefrontal cortex shuts off, amygdala takes over. That's the emotional brain. And the emotional brain knows only three things. Fight, flight or freeze, turn on. My boss is going on for half an hour. You did this, you did that. You should have done this, you should have done that. You are a fool. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Nothing is registering because my prefrontal cortex is shut down. If the leader realises this thing, recognises this thing and says, okay, come in, let's have a talk, as you rightly said earlier and says, okay, Sandeep, the target was this. You could not achieve it. But whatever you have achieved, that's great, tell me the reason of how can I help you? What should we do so that the next time you will achieve the target? Because his ranting was also to achieve the target. The goalpost is not shifting. Only the style of interacting with me is shifting. Let me share a life example with you. There was a company, they hired me to help them to bring the right energies into the right place. They were at 800 million. That was their turnover. They wanted to increase the turnover to 1600 million in one year. And there was a market, there was a market, but this 100% growth had rattled the entire team. Because this team was coming from a government setup where 5 to 10% growth was a growth to celebrate and party. So when we went there, so what they told us, me and my team, that look, the energy is very low. You do something, give them a motivation, talk, do this, do that, et cetera, et cetera, and make sure that they are full of energy. So we went there, we used certain techniques and then we realised the power. The problem is not the energy is low, the power is. The problem is something else. People are not feeling wanted, people are not feeling a part of the organisation. People are not feeling being heard, they are not feeling important. So we got them into a room, used a lot of techniques where we got them to define their vision, their mission, their values, as a collaborative team where each and every member of the 32 people, 32 people team participated. Now, this thing did three things. Jo Number one, it created a bond between the 32 people. And since the bond was created and sub teams were created and they were helping each other, so the probability of something slipping between two chairs and no one bending to pick it up got eradicated. Since the values, vision and mission were created by the entire 32, they became committed to it. And I did a very simple thing. I said, okay, you guys tell me, what are the strengths of your organisation? So 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 strengths came. I said, okay, brilliant. Every day you come to office. Yes, Sir. Give me three strengths which you bring to office. So now 33 people into three was 99 strengths were above. Well, some would be duplicate, et cetera. Or earlier they said 10 and now they were unique for 35 or 40 strengths. Say look guys, if you join hands, it's not 10, it's 35 strengths you have. And with 35 strengths, can you achieve the 100% growth? Yes, we can. And they achieved 90% of that. That's a huge, huge thing to celebrate. This assignment was done around two years back. I was talking to the CEO the other day. The energy is still high. So when you bind people together, you show them a path. You don't micromanage, you treat them well, you give them a good culture, a good atmosphere. People perform. And the manager's got to understand when someone commits a mistake, he or she knows that they have committed a mistake. So don't rub it in. You mentioned in some of the notes you put together before the

Joanne Lockwood: show about you called it total worldliness as opposed to un worldliness. How do you frame that about? There are three words.

Sandeep Amar Gupta: Worldliness, gross worldliness. You only think of the material, nothing else than the material. And you can go to any extent to achieve that material. So values, love, mutuality, nothing comes into play. If need be, you could kill, you could rob, you could do anything to achieve the material. That's the gross worldliness. On the other hand is gross unworldliness. Now what is that unworldliness? Hey, I don't want it. You first. You. No, no, no, no. I'll sacrifice, I'll sacrifice, I'll sacrifice. No, you got to protect your self interest. So that is gross unworldliness. And the third thing is a better worldliness where you balance both the things. You come to the centre point, the midpoint, where you apply the principle of self preservation, self protection, self defence. When I say this thing, it does not allow me to harm anyone, to protect myself and create a world on the basis of love, mutuality, where there's an opportunity for everyone to educate themselves, to live healthy, to work, to unleash their potential and live peacefully and happy. I know this might sound like a utopian idea, but then we got to have a goal to move towards to do something. So this is the reason I say better. Worldliness is my goal. The problem we face as a human

Joanne Lockwood: species often is these. You mentioned the, the amygdala, the fight, flight, freeze, the vagus nerve. Our human psyche is geared up against self protection and when we feel threatened or when we experience things that are outside of our control, we retreat back into this defensive mode. In our business world, in society, ourselves, before we become. Before the amygdala kicks in basically before. Or we become emotionally driven.

Sandeep Amar Gupta: Well achieving a hundred percent state is impossible. But yes, controlling yourself is possible. And the entire Indian ancient wisdom focuses around this thing, you know, they are, it's a four step formula, you know, which I propose. Number one, attention management. Learn to manage your attention. Learn to manage your attention. Because without your attention, without focusing on anything, you cannot do anything. Attention is fundamental. Once you learn to manage your attention, learn to observe properly. Now Jo, you would say we are observing properly. I know there's a book over there and there's a cat over there. When I say observe properly, observe externally and internally. Because whenever there's a thought, there's a stimulus, there's something first. It manifests and reacts internally. It's an internal bodily reaction which manifests externally. For example, if you don't, you don't like someone and that person is approaching, is coming towards you, you'll have a strange feeling, some part of your body would twitch or would get, what should I say, might just get agitated, your heartbeat might start running fast, whatever it could be. And then you greet that person with us with a grumpy face. Now so this is the observation part, right? Or you know you're going to blow up, you're going to shout because your heart has started beating. Now between the beat, between the beating of your heart and shouting, there is a small gap. So the third stage is pause. Put your finger on the gap. If you observe between the internal reaction and the external manifestation, there's a small gap, that is pause, practise pause. Now the pause could be for a fraction of a second, 100th of a second. Catch that point and when you catch that point, amygdala opens the doors, lets go of you and the prefrontal cortex receives the stimulus. And now you say, okay, now you say that look, I was angry with this guy for what he did in 1960. But today is 2024. The man could have changed, the woman could have changed. She might be coming with a proposal for me. That is the prefrontal cortex thinking, the fight is not over over here. The fourth point is acceptance, which is the mother of everything except reality as it is without any riders, without any justifications, without any excuses. For example, I have failed in an exam and Jo says, sandeep, tell me, how was the result? I cannot lie to Jo. Right, that's a Jo, I failed. You know, it was bad luck what had happened. I'll cook up a story and tell Jo, this is the way we accept reality. 99.9% cases, I say, Jo says, what's the result, Jo? I have failed. Be real now. The act of failing is causing me pain. I'm not hardwired for pain. So automatically I start thinking of why did I fail? What can I do so I don't fail again? Whereas in the first case, bad luck, I met with an accident. I slept, I was having fever. I am shifting my attention from the act of failure to something else and I never find the solution. So therefore I call this thing AOPA formula. And I've learned it from life. I've learned it from life. So if a person follows this thing, practises this, I can assure the person 60 to 70% catch of the amygdala. What Cease. I'm a disciple of

Joanne Lockwood: that thinking as well. So I would. I'm a great believer that I haven't failed an exam. I've learned what I didn't know. And I also the personal accountability. I could, I could do, do better, I can learn better, I could be more prepared, I can learn more. So, yeah, I always think of as humans, we don't learn through getting things right, we learn through mistakes, we learn through trial and error, we learn through situations. And as I often say as a young child, we don't learn to walk the first time we stand up, we have to fall over, we have to bang our head, we have to hit our knee, we have to cry and scream and be picked up by a mother. And then we learn about balance. Then we learn about moving on a foot in front of the other foot. And then we become proficient enough to be able to run. And we don't run first time. So everything we do in life should be seen as continual learning and enhancement. If we see failure as a setback, we should see failure as an opportunity. And I know that's very cliche and very easy to say but we have to make mistakes to learn, to grow. I totally agree with you. You don't have to

Sandeep Amar Gupta: make mistakes. You make mistakes. You see, because you intentionally. You never make a mistake, Jo. It's only in hindsight you say that was a mistake because at that point of time, when you took that decision, it was the best decision which you could have taken based on the facts. Available at that time. That was the decision

Joanne Lockwood: you made. So it's not a mistake. It's only when

Sandeep Amar Gupta: you have grown in wisdom, you have grown in intelligence, you have grown in experiences, you look back and say, hey, I committed a mistake. Mistake is a wrong word. No, you never made a mistake. You will make a mistake. If by looking back you don't learn the lesson, that will be a mistake. Because that time you did not have the resources. Today you have the resources, resources of experience. This is what I mean. I agree. Yeah,

Joanne Lockwood: it's. I think if we all were able to frame it that way, because one of the other things I find in the work I do is that one of the biggest barriers is the fear of getting it wrong or the fear of upsetting somebody or the fear of not having all the answers. And it can hold us back, create limiting beliefs. But also from an inclusion, from a culture perspective, people are so worried about upsetting somebody else that they're not. They almost back away rather than engage and have a conversation. I think that's, that's a challenge we've all got to try and overcome is put ourselves into that stretch zone or put ourselves into a position where we, we can deal with discomfort. What you're saying is absolutely right.

Sandeep Amar Gupta: You know, as coaches, right, we know that we need to connect with the heart. And you can connect with the heart only when you discard. The element of judgement in your judgement is a product of the brain, of the mind. So first of all, we got to. That's the, that's what I do. Discard judgement. Open your heart. No one has done any mistake. They've experienced certain things which might have worked for them in the long run, might not have worked for them in the. A lot of things I did didn't work for me. When I look back, everything worked for me because those mistakes were what gave me the insight what I should do, what I should not do. So. Okay, now coming back to your question. As coaches, I always say, open your heart, connect with the person, be a good listener, just listen and listen to them. And there have been times, Jo, where my client has spoken to me for an hour and all I'VE done is five, six times. Tell me more or that's all. But let me share a case with you. There was a client, that girl called me for one hour. She kept on ranting on the phone, this is this, this is this, this is this, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. I kept on saying. And she said, sir, what is your assessment? I said, you don't have a purpose in life. She got very angry, she banged the phone down, okay, after 10 days she calls me sir. I was thinking, you are right, I don't have a purpose in life. Would you help me to work on my purpose? And today I think I must have done a number of sessions with her. She's a changed person. And I'm also helping her in setting up a business because I'm a chartered accountant, right? So I understand the business dynamics. And she has become a sort of say permanent client of mine as on date. So somewhere, you know, we coaches need to get out of that fear of displeasing the client because truths are hard to swallow. But at the same time we got to be polite, we got to be diplomatic and all truths need not be told at the same time or at the wrong time. We got to be mindful. Is the client prepared way to listen to that truth at this point of time or no? I know probably certain coaching philosophies would say no, this is not done. But then whatever serves my client, whatever helps my client, I think that's the best philosophy. Eventually

Joanne Lockwood: you're a charged accountant by profession of law, due respect, a long standing, you've been in the game a fair while. How have you seen the world of commerce and work evolve over the last 20 or 30 years? Okay, let me give the story of last 40

Sandeep Amar Gupta: years. I became a chartered accountant in 79. The world was very different. We didn't even have the calculators then. So you can, in today's terms, it was very primitive. I used the word primitive. You know, when I became a chartered accountant, I asked myself, why have you become a chartered accountant? The traditional practise does not enamor you, does not interest you. Those were the days in India when management consultancy was coming and I jumped at it. I'll answer your question also, right? And soon I realised while working with the best, that the best of projects, best of strategies, best of everything fails. Why? Because of one man who's driving the project or the problem. So that got me interested into the human dimension. Now when we come to the human dimension, there are two things very important. Excuse me, there Are two things very important for the human being to unleash its full potential or live by his or her full potential. One of the values, aspirations, dreams, self management tools and techniques which come from spirituality. Because human beings are a microcosm of the macrocosm that's on one side, on the other side, yes, it knocks. You need money to survive. And this is the reason I say we live in two worlds simultaneously. If our inner world grows without a support of the external world, we become lame ducks. Anyone can come and kick us and kill us. And if our external world grows without corresponding growth of the inner world, we become man eaters. We'll do anything for survival. So now this is where the spirituality, human potential, economics came together. And I being a chartered accountant, that made it much easier for me. So I say, okay, I understand the top line, I understand the bottom line and what happens between the two lines, right, I can help you in that. So spirituality and economics, when they come together, that is the time human beings flourish. If the church, the temples, the everyone priests, they want money because that is the way life functions. Now the question is whether they're greedy or not, that's a different thing. So I'll not bring that into it, otherwise I'll keep going on and on. Now coming to the transition, the journey, how the businesses have changed. The way I'm looking at it, 80s, it was all about the bottom bottom line. How much profit have you made, period? This was a year of turmoil because subjective thought, subjective thinking, consciousness, awareness was all thrown out of the window in the 80s, 70s, 80s, 60s. And if you go back to the 1960s, there was an article in Harvard Business Review, it is okay to cheat in business. So that was the scenario that then the repercussions came. Then I saw the triple profit line coming in. Planet people profits. Then came the technology age, the 90s, 2000s. So we have, we moved from the industrial era to the information era. Everything changed, started changing. Computers came in, SOPs started being developed, SAP came into picture. Big organisations came in to produce computers. And after the computers came the information, they came the knowledge age. Today knowledge is the most important and whenever a new wave comes, it comes like a tsunami. It disrupts a lot of things, but at the same time it also constructs a lot of things. So I've seen the transitioning from the industrial era to the IT era, to the knowledge era and now to the virtual reality. When I started my practise, I had to count the numbers, run my finger on the line of numbers and count manually Today, AI gives me the power to cheque the way Jo is counting his numbers while he is 7,000, 8,000 miles away from me. Yes, now the question comes. 70% of the people suffer from the ostrich syndrome. When changes happen, they fail to end. Why? They love their comfort zone and their mind says, come on, sleep. It'll pass, it'll pass. Nothing is permanent in the world. It'll pass. Mind doesn't tell them that. Look, gentlemen, you are standing on step one and what this wave is doing is taking you to step two. Step two will pass, but then it'll take the person to step four and you'll be left behind. And to catch up, you've got to get out of your comfort zone, you've got to shun the ostrich syndrome. You've got to look around, accept reality as it is. And now let me come to the present day thing. This, all this mental challenges which we are facing is I believe, who has said this is a century of mental challenges, mental issues, mental epidemic. Why? Because 90% people are dissatisfied with themselves. I'll say they are dissatisfied with themselves because they don't know who they are, what they want. They are just copying what their friends do, what their icons do, what the rich do and they're emulating. They got to recognise who they are. And let me tell you one thing is that every human being is absolutely unique and will always be unique. Do you know the reason, Jo? From the moment

Joanne Lockwood: we're born, our lived experiences, the people we interact with, our DNA, everything diverges.

Sandeep Amar Gupta: Exactly. The set of parents, right? The set of parents are unique. Their set of parents were unique. Their set of parents were unique. Their set of parents were unique. If you keep going back and this uniqueness will not replicate going forward, there might be people like you, but not identical to. They will not be your clones.

Joanne Lockwood: That takes us back to what we said at the beginning around our spirituality, our soul. Our soul is unique.

Sandeep Amar Gupta: Yes. Who we are. Yes. I usually ask people, I said, what is. What is something absolutely unique about you? I can do this. I said, okay, if you can do this, so can I. How come you're unique or I got this strength? Okay, if you have, so does Jo, so does, so does Jo has. So what is so unique about it? So does Sally has, so does Rita has. I say your strengths and weaknesses are unique and you've got to keep on upskilling your strengths and reducing your weaknesses. They say, why? I said, all opportunities are in the external world. They're constantly going up, up, up. Becoming more complex, more complex, more complex. They got a. They got a certain demand of strengths and weaknesses. Now your strengths and weaknesses are not matching those demands. What is going to happen? Either you'll fail, you'll not succeed, or your business will slow down or your growth will slow down or totally cease if you want to restart it. You got to work on yourself. You've got to enhance your strengths, upskill yourself so you can stretch your hand and capitalise on the opportunity which exists, which is offering itself to you. And deep. What an amazing conversation that I can

Joanne Lockwood: carry on talking to you all day. How can people contact you? How do people

Sandeep Amar Gupta: contact me? Okay, you see, till that time, till Covid had not come. Okay, I'll be very honest. I had my own circle. I've been practising for 40 years. So people knew about me today, my old contacts, they contact me, they contact me through LinkedIn, they contact me through my website and they contact me through word of mouth. And I believe that the word of mouth is the most potent and the most important. I agree. I

Joanne Lockwood: agree. Because it only means if someone is saying, okay,

Sandeep Amar Gupta: you can go to Sandeep or rely on Sandeep. It means I have made an ambassador. What of that person? An ambassador for me. And this boy or girl, or man or woman would speak to as many people as possible without I pushing them to speak. So yes, definitely you got to be visible on social media, which I am. Slash in slash. Sandeep Guppta. Delhi Slash. I got a YouTube channel by Sandeep Guppta Live. My website is guptasandeep.com and as you rightly sit in the morning, I speak, I, I coach and I train on growth and transformation and I help business leaders, businesses and individuals in identifying barriers, breaking them and creating meaningful futures for them, their families and society. Nadeep. Thank

Joanne Lockwood: you so much for your time and it's been an inspiration listening to you and sharing time with you today. Thank you. I really loved it. Thank

Sandeep Amar Gupta: you very much. You were a brilliant host.

Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter. Got thoughts, stories or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.lockwoodchangehappen.co.uk and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.