On April 29th, I received an email from the PR team of Kristina Lakhinani - Co-Founder of Mindvalley (offering me a fabulous opportunity to read her upcoming book - "Becoming Flawsome" (which has now been recently released), and share my thoughts on my blog.
And being a huge fan and follower of Mindvalley and Vishen Lakhiani, I said ‘yes’ with a lot of excitement.
They sent me an early copy of the book, and I am one of the most fortunate people to have experienced ‘Becoming Flawsome’ before it was even officially released.
Now after I have read it, I am so proud of my decision to say ‘Yes’ to Becoming Flawsome.
Not because they are a huge brand in the Education Industry, but because what I found in its profound pages was something that I really truly needed to hear..
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Becoming Flawsome - A few extremely important lessons to learn, and some ideas of my own that needed company.
The conventional notion of success and happiness that our beloved society has sold us is like a drug, and we all have become an addict.
In this whole race of chasing empty goals trying to prove our egoic worth to impress the world has perhaps helped us to achieve material prosperity, but as a clear side effect, we have learnt to live an artificial life which has snatched away our true happiness.
True happiness that comes from..
Being us..
Doing what our natural gifts are..
Embracing our flaws and imperfections with love and pride..
In simple plain words.. being authentic!!!
Kristina goes deeper into these notions, helps us understand these foundations of a truly happy life, and asks profound questions that make us self reflect.
The funny thing is that we run every race to attain happiness, only to find later that this was just not enough. We need more.. But there’s no end to this.
If happiness is a destination unique to each person, then why are we told to follow the same exact map?
This is a deep question that Kristina asks.
If you could pause, dig deep within, and answer this question not to anybody else but to yourself, your life will elevate multiple folds and faster than you can think.
Kristina says:
“Imagine how your life evolved if, from an early age, you were told to put more effort into areas where you did well, rather than where you struggled.”
I can very well relate!
My true interests have always been languages, people, life, creativity, deep core connections, music, cultures, and freedom.
But all these gifts that naturally came to me were not enough to build a successful career since I was growing up until I chose my first career.
I used to flunk in Maths, could not do even simple calculations. So, I was expected to pay more attention to this scary subject in school.
It took ages and too much struggle (not to mention criticism and mockery) to finally own my real natural gifts that I am celebrating now in my life and profession.
We are slave to a ‘Hustle Culture’
And this is the real problem.
As someone growing up in an average traditional family in India, I learnt this very early that:
It’s all about Hard Work!
The more you hustle, the higher you’ll go.
And it took me two long decades to understand that hustle culture is a big myth spread by a bunch of privileged people who formed the secret society, who perhaps wanted to keep all the true secrets of money, happiness, and success to themselves.
So, they became the masters and we became the slaves to this Culture of Hustle
“Western society idolizes hustling. It’s a status symbol. Our faith in hard work and hustling is so profound that if we find any evidence to the contrary, if success comes easy, we become suspicious - something is just not right.”
We're Afraid of Rejection
In the battle of Internal v/s External, we always seem to let the External World win, because we are afraid of rejection.
Kristina is suggesting we be authentic and trust ourselves more than the outside world.
I stopped myself from wearing shorts and short western dresses for too long just because I didn’t want people to judge and criticize me.
Not anymore though, Lolz!
And Kristina is right.
People are not actually thinking about us. And even if they are, how and why should it affect us?
So, yes. It’s not about people accepting us. It’s all about we accepting us.
No one wants your perfection..
I believe that:
Trying to be perfect is like faking yourself to be someone you are not.
Perfectionism is just not real.
It’s okay to have flaws, and you are awesome with your flaws.
Kristina has given it a new word - Flawsome.
As the title suggests, ‘Becoming Flawsome’ is taking you through step by step to become Flawsome..
From identifying where you now are, to going through the transformation, and to finally reach your “very own” and “authentic” destination of happiness and success by your own definition.