498 Pankaj Singh

[00:00:00]

Introduction to Pankaj Singh's Leadership Journey

Jeffrey Feldberg: Pankaj Singh is a definition of relentless leadership, transformation, and true resilience. From humble beginnings to becoming a globally respected leadership strategist and Executive Coach, Singh has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs and executives break through their mental barriers to unlock unstoppable growth both in business and in life.

As the founder of Sing Leadership Academy and host of the Invincible Leader Podcast, sing combines battle tested leadership principles with human psychology to equip high performers with the tools to lead with clarity, conviction, and courage. His bestselling book, Invincible Leadership Build Your Mindset, Lead Like A Champion. Create Lasting Impact has become a playbook for ambitious leaders worldwide, delivering actionable strategies for self-mastery and business excellence. 

What sets Sing apart is his ability to cut through the noise and get straight to the heart of what holds leaders back, be it fear, [00:01:00] doubt or overwhelm and turn it into fuel for growth.

His work isn't just about strategy. It's about rewiring mindset, mastering self-leadership, and building a legacy of impact. If you're an entrepreneur, business owner or executive looking to rise above the daily chaos and step into your full potential, this conversation will challenge you, inspire you, and give you the playbook for unstoppable leadership.

And before we hop into the podcast, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. We have William, a graduate of Deep Both Mastery, and he says, I didn't have the time for Deep Both Mastery, but I made the time and I'm glad I did.

What I learned goes far beyond any other executive program or coach I've ever experienced. Or how about Bruce? Bruce says, before Deep Wealth Mastery, the challenge I had with most business programs, coaches, or blogs was that they were one dimensional. Through Deep Wealth Mastery, I'm part of a richer community of other successful business owners.

The idea shared forever changed the [00:02:00] trajectory of the business and best of all, the experience was fun. And we'll round things out with Stacey. 

Stacey said, I wish I had access to the Deep Wealth Mastery before my liquidity event, as it would have been extremely helpful. Deep Wealth Mastery exceeded my expectations in terms of content and quality.

And you know what, my Deep Wealth Nation, why they're saying this is because Deep Wealth Mastery, it's the only system based on a nine figure deal. That was my deal. And as you know, I said no to a seven figure offer, and I created a system that we now call Deep Wealth Mastery that helped myself and my business partners, welcome from a different buyer, a different offer, a nine figure exit.

So if you're interested in growing your profits, preparing for a future liquidity event, if that's two years away or 20 years away, and you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you. Please email success at deepwealth. com. Again, that's success, S U C C E S S, at deepwealth. com. We'll send you all the information about Deep Wealth Mastery, otherwise known as Scale for Ultimate [00:03:00] Sale. That's where you want to be. You want to be with other successful business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders just like you who are looking to create market disruptions.

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Welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. Well, Deep Wealth Nation, we have a saying here at Deep Wealth. The team and myself, the saying is, show us your team, show us your leadership, and we'll tell you your future. So let me ask you this Deep Wealth Nation, Putting yourself aside or maybe even including yourself, how is your leadership?

Are you at the top of your game? Are you getting to the next level? Or maybe you can take it to the next level, but you're missing a few things. You don't know quite what that is, but you don't have the time. You don't wanna spend the time, the money, the resources to get there. You're looking for some.

Proven ways, perhaps some little known strategies that can help. That's exactly what we're gonna be talking about today. We have a very special guest in the House of Deep Well, the fellow [00:04:00] podcaster, entrepreneur thought Leadering, it's an absolute pleasure to have you with us. Welcome to the Deep Well Podcast, and there's always a story behind the story.

Singh's Personal Leadership Story

Jeffrey Feldberg: So, Singh, what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Pankaj Singh: Thank you for having me, Jeff. I really appreciate it. I'll start this with the point of pivot in my life to this particular moment. Started in 2020 October. During Covid, we had a ransomware attack and I was a chief technology officer of the company. the shortage of that is we came out of that in within 38, 40 hours without paying any ransomware.

Kudos to my team, my leadership team my vendors, my partners who all jumped on to help immediately. After that I was invited in a lot of different webinars to talk about because ransomware attack is very severe and be able to come out of it as even more unique the way we did it. But. What dawned on me is in the fourth, fifth interview, when I was listening to the same question when it happened, how did you manage it when the actual [00:05:00] ransomware attack happened?

What did you do? And step by step, stuff like, like that And I started thinking, this is something that came very normal to me. I never panicked. I mean, I kept my team intact. I mean, nobody went off like they, like everybody's asking about, right? Then I said, okay, there is something that I'm missing here.

And I started reflecting back into my life. We're not traveling at that time. We have enough time. And what I identified a common thread is I actually was blessed enough to have a two and a half month of mindful practice training from a LAMA when I was 14 years old. And I've kept that with me without calling it my whole practice as a regular practice with me.

So. I have been through multiple situations that I have neutralized before it became a full-blown conflict without even thinking about it that I have, I'm doing it. And it all turned down when I started documenting and putting things together. It came out as two frameworks. So first framework is individual.

So [00:06:00] purpose, reflection, organizing your life around it. Then what do you need? Great resilience, empowerment, self-improvement and support to be able to fulfill that purpose. So that was a progress framework. I started testing it out in 21, 22 with a lot of different individuals for LinkedIn, and it was all working fine, but they were not able to replicate and attend that beyond that one conversation that I was having with them.

So I started looking into that and what it boiled down to was I was sneaking in. Micro mindful practices in every conversation. And let me give this out to your listeners right now. I'll start this and then there'll be a few other things I'll give. So one of the things I used to do is for 25 years, almost any meeting I would have, no matter who it is, the first thing I would do in the meeting is take a deep breath and write down in five to 10 words, what is the outcome I want from that meeting. The moment you have people ask that question, what you're doing is you are getting them out of their [00:07:00] autopilot and bring them in the present moment. And when I did research, the fascinating thing that I've identified, and it actually got published by Deloitte also a few years back, the span of focus of an average human had gone down to 14 seconds, 12 seconds. And the statistics that are really bothering is that 90% of the leaders, when they come in a meeting for the first 10 minutes, they're not there. They're still thinking about the previous conversation. They're still thinking about previous, whatever meeting they had or whatever task they left, and they're not in the moment there.

So this exercise that I just said that, hey. What do you want out of this meeting? Go Goes a long way. And I have done some workshops with high school kids to get them off of their digital devices. I ask them, every time you pick up the phone to scroll, ask two simple things first. What is tangible? I can get out of this right now.

It can be happiness, it can be fun, it can whatever it is. But then the [00:08:00] second question. If I was not doing that, what else I could be doing?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. Okay. My goodness. So much there to unpack and quite the story of what's there. But let me go back to something that you said. You put it out there, deep Nation, I don't know if you picked up on this. It's very easy to overlook. So you had some perhaps training, mentorship with a llama. So for those that aren't familiar with that term or what that's about, particularly here in the west.

What is that exactly? And let's go down a little bit of that Lama rabbit hole because that is so important and to me, I couldn't agree more with everything that you're saying. It's one of the most missed opportunities and leadership strategies out there with what you're about to share with us. So what was going on with that?

Pankaj Singh: So Lama essentially is a monk, but this monk they're called lamas. And I was very hap sniper as a kid. So very early. It was a joint family, very affluent family. And I was a attention seeker, [00:09:00] right from the get go, right? So I was three years old and my parents introduced me to Indian classical puck. So in those days, I don't want to age myself, but back in those days. But this, there was no A DHD or any, those terms that were used, right? And there no medication for that. So the only medication for that was timeout. So the timeout for me was to play Indian percussion instruments and by age of 30, and I already had postmasters in Indian percussion instrument, but my hyperness never went away.

So anytime I would get, if somebody crossed on the street and they'd look it in my eye, there's 80% chance that I'm gonna have a fight. So when I was 14 and about to start the serious education and everything else. My parents had me go to Tibet to Lama and I stayed there for two and a half months and I learned the true mindful practice there.

In the four decades since then, again, I'm dating myself in four decades. Since then, I have been able to make those into micro [00:10:00] practices. So when I talk about mindful practice. The myth is that you have to pull a yoga mat and you have to twist your body in 10 different ways for two hours, right? Or you have to go on a retreat somewhere to learn something.

No, nothing. It all starts with a simple thing that we take for granted and that simple thing that we take for granted is our breath.

A human's life starts with a breath and ends with the acceleration,

But. 99% of people, we take it for granted. We don't even focus on your breath. very first thing to get in the moment, get in the present moment is to see are you breathing? You are alive, you're breathing, but can you feel your breathing? does not need any yoga mat. It does not need any retreat. It does not need anything. But just close your eyes, take a deep breath and feel where that is going.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So with that, and I couldn't agree more with you, it's all about the breath. And I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs I have lost count of entrepreneurs, founders, business owners, when they're in the deep health community. One of the things that we talk about is mindfulness. [00:11:00] Getting to that good state, and we even talk about meditation and saying, the common thing that I hear is, well, Jeffrey, I've tried meditation, I listened to recordings.

I've tried the apps. I've even gone to some classes. I can't do it. After 30 seconds a minute, my mind chats all over the place. I feel frustrated. I feel tense. It's just not working. So I've just given up. I've stopped, and I know for myself, I'm very fortunate. That wasn't my experience. It took a while. I do meditate, and to your point, when I let my body do what it needs to do, by the time I come outta that meditation, my breathing is calm.

It is deep. My mindfulness being in the moment, it's 20 minutes. Coming outta that though, I feel like I had an eight hour sleep. It's really beyond words. So for an entrepreneur, we're burning it at both ends, and we don't often have the energy. We're not getting the sleep that we should. We're suffering.

It's like the thief in the night robbing us of success. And before we go on and talk about leadership in these wonderful things that you're doing, so with what you learned from the llama [00:12:00] with the breathing being in the moment. What would you tell if I was one of your clients? I'm either an entrepreneur or an executive.

I'm coming to you, we're doing some one-on-one coaching, and you wanna take me to the next level when it comes to breathing, even before I start my day. What would you be sharing with us? I.

Pankaj Singh: So I would give a very simple micro exercise, but before I do that, just to make sure we understand the common term. When people talk about mindfulness, they think about stopping the brain. There's no stopping the brain. It cannot stop the brain,

Right? But five senses can be 12 depending on the, school of thought that you have.

But the basic five senses that we have, human body is the best engineering marvel on this earth, right? And the brain is capturing data 24 7. So mindfulness means can you feel and understand what is filled in your mind? So what is mind? There's something called mind and science, but let's go back to a simple scientific thing is brain.

Your brain is capturing data 24 [00:13:00] 7, and mindful practice just means to tap into that, right? To be able to tap into that in the present. Why that is important is very critical to understand

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Pankaj Singh: brain being the laziest thing in our body. If you do the same activity same way 10 times, 11th time, it goes in autopilot, right?

And the neurons are fighting in a way that you, they're thinking you are in fight and flight mode when it is autopilot. And that's your amygdala taking over the control when that happens. Think about it, right? When there's a chaos and you get into surviving mode, what do you do?

You cut down all other resources, right? You just have the bare minimum to stay alive. That's what we are doing with our body, letting our brain run in autopilot. thing about just feeling your breath, the moment you feed your breath, you are telling your brain, I'm going to shut off the autopilot. You're breathing on autopilot. You never feel your heart, you never feel your lungs, you never feel your kidney, nothing, right? It's just happening on autopilot. But the [00:14:00] moment you break for a second, you are activating the prefrontal cortex, which is your logical brain,

Right? So the very simple thing I would ask people, two.

Two very simple things, right? Whenever you wake up in the morning and you get out of bed. You stand, feel the feet, right? What I mean by that is you might have stood on that carpet, you would have stood on that tile. You would've stood on that road 200 times, but trust me, believe me, next time when you get out of bed, stand there and just feel the sensation.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, so interesting. And Singh, as you're talking about this, I'm thinking of really any number of members in the deep health community that are saying, okay, Singh, I hear you. You seem like a smart guy, but come on. What is getting up in the morning, standing feeling the floor below me? What does it have to do with my business, with profits, with taking my future to the next level?

What would you say to that?

Pankaj Singh: So that very first thing of feeling your feet is to bring you in present.

90% of the time we are doing something that we are [00:15:00] not present there. It's just happening with us. So I meet with leaders. I have been there, right? I give you example of ransomware attack. I did not panic. did not panic.

I did not allow my team to panic when I did not have to work hard for that. It was just the training I have been teaching them for. Whatever number of years they have worked with me without telling it as mindful practice, which is whenever we sit down, let's forget about the problem. Let's talk about what we're trying to get out of this conversation right now. How many times you as a leader walk in the meeting and not you, but everybody in the room has clarity of what every individual wants outta this. So the idea of micro mindful practice is. Knowing that average plan of focus has gone down to 14. Second, can we create something that stays with us for more than 14 seconds to intervene and create an intervention for the autopilots that's going to come? I'll give you two very good examples. I have a very good friend here who is a Marshall [00:16:00] and fire department, and, the very first time I sat on with him and his team, I explained them how they have designed their brain. They have wired their brain to wait for that panic button, right? So they are waiting on that bus. Even if they don't have anything going on and they have the buzzer, they cannot sleep because they're in the anticipation of the buzzer to go off, which will give them that adrenaline to run and do something.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure.

Pankaj Singh: So that's what is called firefighting and why it's, and we don't have that, right?

I mean, if you don't pick up your phone look at that phone unless somebody is calling you, trust me. If somebody needs you that disparately for your business, they will know the how to find you.

You don't have to look at your phone twenty four seven.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure. And so what I'm hearing you say with this, when we take something really as sublime as getting up for the day, feeling what's below our feet, we are training ourselves. And by the way, you're right. Oh my goodness, this carpet that I have or this area rug, or this [00:17:00] hardwood floor, I never noticed.

Perhaps how warm it feels or how plush it is, or now on the bed, just to carry on with your example. Wow, my bedsheets are so soft, so fluffy, and we can just go on and on with that. But what I'm hearing you say, and you can say Jeffrey OnBase or off base, when we start with ourselves, when we start with the mundane things.

When we not have that as a to-do, but we actually make it a ritual. It just becomes a part of us in terms of what we're doing naturally that'll flow into every part of our life and in the business realm. Well, you know what? I see Mary over there. She doesn't look like her usual self. Let me get curious, Mary, what's going on?

I've noticed every day you're like this, but today you're not. Is there something you wanna share with me? And that we're just picking up on these details that not only are we a better leader. We're just a better person. We're more in tune, a better family member, a better friend, a better colleague. How am I doing with that?

Pankaj Singh: Absolutely. That's exactly the point. So I was going there. You start. With yourself. The moment you do that, you did two things.

[00:18:00] The first thing you intervened, your brain before it went into autopilot, that every morning you get up and go coffee and do this, and do that. You intervened and started your brain.

Your brain now starts thinking that, okay, Jeffrey is serious today. I need to focus on what he wants.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure.

Pankaj Singh: But the second thing that you're doing. You are getting in control of your emotions because you are feeling the sensation, you're labeling it, it's is cold, it is warm, right? And anything it's called, it's set in business, right?

Anything that you can monitor and measure, you can fix

Jeffrey Feldberg: So another way of saying that in business speak. Hey Jeffrey, you're gonna get to know the KPIs of what makes you tick.

Whereas before you're in autopilot, you're not really paying attention. Perhaps you're feeling tense or angry. You don't even notice it. Now you do. And now you can do something about that.

Hey, oh my goodness, I feel tense. Why am I feeling tense? What's causing this? Oh, it's that issue there. My goodness, I was ignoring that. Lemme put some attention to that so I can dissipate that.

Pankaj Singh: So, so I'll add to that, [00:19:00] extend that a little further because I have got a very deep analytics background professionally. Not only that, now Jeffrey starts getting to look at the KPIs. If you start doing that, you will start identifying which of those are leading indicators,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Pankaj Singh: right? I'm in a meeting, I snapped at someone that is like looking at a report at end of the month to see what the sales numbers are.

There's nothing you can do about it,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Love that. Yes.

Pankaj Singh: But if you know the math behind that number that. I have 10 people, they have to get x number of meetings, XY number of presentations that will lead into this many contracts that will lead into the sales number that I want. Now, you have created the leading indicators to get to the final dessert.

So if I want business owner, Jeffrey comes to me as as my client, and he says, what do I do? The first thing I tell him is, okay, go back and look at the backward engineering of that math. You snapped. What happened before that sna, right? You were irritated [00:20:00] because John was interrupting you in the conversation.

Okay. What did that feel like? So emotions are not bad. Emotions are the data points that's telling us something in the system is wrong.

Jeffrey Feldberg: I like that. So emotions, that's our heads up. Hey, something's off base. Particularly if not to put labels per se, I guess I am gonna put a label, particularly if it has us feeling sad or angry or frustrated, or. Anxious or worried as opposed to joy or, Hey, I feel fulfilled, I feel happy. I really like that.

Yeah.

Pankaj Singh: And then I tell people that, okay, the way you look at your business, you look at your KPIs. Maybe your sales is going good, but there are other things that you can see that, okay, my retention, I'm dropping in retention,

Which means even though today the new sales is good because I'm losing in retention, my future business will be damaged

right now.

Put that in terms of emotions. Yes, I'm able to control the emotion in one part of my life, but I'm not able to [00:21:00] control emotions in other part of the life.

So to be able to solve that, people need to improve their emotional vocabulary. what I mean by that, so John was interrupting Jeffrey, and Jeffrey was getting irritated. Let's expand that vocabulary to say where you feeling rushed to finish a presentation? Were you feeling. Anxious of what questions might come because John is interrupting, right? Were you anxious? So is it just that irritation? Or this is something below that irritation that is causing that. Those are like looking at those matrix to tell business folks how you can bring your team together in a much better fashion.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So now that we've laid the foundation from one comment that was very easy to overlook, saying where you said, yes, I saw a lama when I was very young and I had a DHD and had other kinds of issues, and it really helped me become the success I am today. So what you've been sharing with us is really a terrific segue of a question I've been wanting to ask you, and that is.

From all the coaching that you're [00:22:00] doing, again, with the executives, with the entrepreneurs, with what I'm gonna ask, saying, you'd be perfectly right to say, Jeffrey, everyone is different. Each person has their own individual journey. What's going on in their life? It's not gonna be exactly the same. But that aside, generally speaking, what would be perhaps the biggest, I'll call it invisible leadership trap, that most entrepreneurs, executives.

Successful people are falling into and they don't even know it. Is there a common pattern? Is it Pareto's Law, the 80 20 principle? Yes. Jeffrey, 20% of these things over here are causing 80% of the challenges over there. What's going on?

Pankaj Singh: So there's two things that's causing it, and it's common across anybody who is burning. It's because of two things. Anybody who's having burnout is because of two things.

The very first thing is we have grown, trained, and acknowledged the doggy dog mentality,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Pankaj Singh: right? Cutthroat. I need results. You have to suck it in.

You have to get through it. You [00:23:00] have to match, right? So that is, I'm trying to break that with leadership teams to say, no, you can be vulnerable.

It is not a bad thing to be vulnerable. It is not a bad thing to say. I don't know. It's not a bad thing to say, I need more time. It's not a bad thing to say I made a mistake.

Right? That is one thing that's happening. Now. The question becomes why people are if you go back to John Maxwell's leadership 21 Rules of Leadership. The very first rule of leadership is the law of the lid, right? You put lid on something and you don't let that out. That person is never gonna grow.

That's what leaders are doing today with their emotions.

The more you hide and press your emotion, it is going to, it is like one of those friends that does not just say, I'm going to come. They actually come.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Uhhuh. Okay. 

The Importance of Self-Awareness in Business

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay. And that's why Deep Wealth Nation, that's why waking up first thing in the morning, what's under my feet, as crazy as that sounds. That's the first pun intended step for us. Becoming aware fully of everything around. It's not just personal, but [00:24:00] on the business side.

Pankaj Singh: Now there's a second part. I said there are two things, right? There's the second part of it. The second part is that living in this rat race, day in and day out, we ignore. Acknowledge that we are individual humans and we have a purpose,

Right? My purpose is, when I say purpose, we define it as what is the best I have to be able to give to Jeffrey so he can use it.

So now put that in the business context. If I'm a CEO. What is the best I have that I can give to my employees beyond salary? I'm not talking about salary. They get come work, they get salary right there. 

Understanding Different CEO Styles

Pankaj Singh: There are three different types of CEOs that I meet.

There is one CEO that is a micromanager. They need to know every single minute of what's happening in every team member.

And there you will see that revolving door. People coming in and out. It does not work. They need to back off and understand. Need to work on your business, not in your business when you're at that level.

There is a second [00:25:00] extreme of CEO that just sits and waits for money to come through. The true CEO is somewhere in middle. And that's where we try to bring people from the two extremes to the middle to say, how can we. Bring the millennia old practices of believing in your breath, and what is that breadth of your business?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, so interesting in terms what's there, and as you're talking about that. One of my favorite studies that it's not that old, but it's been out there for a short little while, and it's by Glassdoor and Deep Wealth Nation. If you're not familiar with Glassdoor, check it out. Actually, in the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, one of the things that we have you do for a step forward due diligence, is your company on Glassdoor.

Do you have existing team members and I call team members instead of employee a team member? Are your team members talking about you? And if they are, what are they saying? If you're not on Glassdoor, well, you should be on Glassdoor. You should have ratings from. Your various team members, but what they say is when they ask different employees what's either keeping you at your company or if this is a new opportunity, what [00:26:00] had you go to this new opportunity?

Perhaps you left an opportunity that you're there for five years, 10 years, or longer, and everyone's surprised saying it wasn't money. It was either leadership and culture, or lack of leadership and culture. So back to the point of what you're saying, if I become the best possible leader that I can, my team is gonna feel it, the culture is going to benefit from that.

It creates a cascading effect, a win-win, win all the way around. I would love your thoughts on that.

Pankaj Singh: It, it does. 

Empathy and Leadership

Pankaj Singh: So, there's a framework that I have, it's called pep.

So it stands for passion and energy in your action first. That's the first one, right? That, That really goes back to say, if you know your purpose of what is the best you have to give to others and you're actually participating, do you know what are the areas that frustrates you in the day?

How can you minimize that? So I'll give you example. Somebody who is a strategist

To start new projects. If you put those, that kind of person into a job where they have to manage day-to-day hourly work, they'll get frustrated.

So, so the people that you have with you, do [00:27:00] you know what frustrates them?

What fulfills them? Yes. People are there just to get the paycheck. They get a bigger paycheck, they will leave you, right? So. To be able to move beyond just the salary and the benefit I'm giving, what truly we are doing there on a daily basis, weekly, but whatever your weekly goal is,

The bigger piece that you called out.

The bigger point that you called out is there is lack of empathy and that lack of empathy starts with us individually. And that's where we have to reflect a little bit on ourselves to say, are we being truly empathetic to ourselves first before we can be empathetic to others?

Is it truly fair for me to respond every single email, even if it's coming middle of the night to show that I am part of it?

No.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure.

Pankaj Singh: That's a very simple thing, right? But the very first thing I tell my folks is, you are not sleeping. You are not on night duty. So either you are having party or binge watching something when you should be sleeping and [00:28:00] being prepared to come in a hundred percent next day morning. So if you're trying to impress.

Hey, I was able to respond to this within whatever now. Yeah I get it. If somebody is on the call, something happens with the system, you better be there. That's a job. That's a job that you're signed up for, that if there's an emergency and you're supposed to be there, you better be there.

That, that's the one thing that I always press on, is to say, let's start with the empathy on ourselves.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Talk to us about that though. Empathy for ourselves. Because you're right. I know for myself, putting myself under the microscope as an entrepreneur, I'm hard on myself. I miss something. Wow. There's an inner dialogue that's going on with myself, not just right after that happens, but it can be for quite some time afterwards.

So saying, what would be some strategies? How do we become more empathetic? Or dare I use the words, how do we love ourselves perhaps, where we've never done that for ourselves before? What should we be doing? What can we do?

Mindfulness and Personal Growth

Pankaj Singh: So there are certain frameworks that I always share with folks. The very first is stop, STOP.

And it's very easy to put that into practice. And that is to [00:29:00] say. If you're driving, most of us, we drive in this, in the, in a states here, or you are in a traffic and you see a red a red signal.

Next time, just remember, stop. What that means is you stop whatever you are doing and pick the last thought that comes to you, right? That's the T. Then O stands for observe. How your body is feeling when you're thinking about that,

And then put a name to that and then move forward.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Pankaj Singh: The very, you, I think you mentioned this earlier, a little earlier, that hey, somebody starts and says, I cannot sit for more than two minutes.

My, so when I have people start working on mindfulness, the very first thing that they come to realize is how loud the mind is.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yes.

Pankaj Singh: Because like I said, the brain is always running 24 7 with all the data. But then if you put that into mindful micro practices, micro journaling, right? And that's the second thing I tell people to do, is put a random eight alarm on your phone eight times in a day.

Put alarm [00:30:00] on your phone

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Pankaj Singh: whenever that goes off. Write the first five to 10 words that comes to your mind, right? And do it for one week, 10 days. Don't go back and read what you wrote. Don't write. I'm not asking you to write a journal. I'm not asking you to write a novel, just first five to 10 words that comes to you. Do it eight times in a day. It can be as simple as I'm eating food or I'm driving. You don't have to waste your time and analyze that.

That's the whole point is what is the first five 10 words coming after 10 days? You go back and look at those things and reflect, when I said this, what was I doing? And that is the way of understanding how your brain is reacting to the memory of the cells in rest of your body.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Ing, let me ask you this because as you're talking about this, I love absolutely appreciate and admire how you're tying this all together because so often in business. It is really one sided in the sense that, okay, Jeffrey, it's just the numbers, it's just the performance. It's just the data, the KPIs, [00:31:00] and we're leaving outside of that.

Us as a person. I'm not to doing, I'm a being and as often say here in the Z of podcast, whoever said the business wasn't personal either, was never in business, never owned a business, never ran a business. It's everything. Personal business. And so I would love to hear your thoughts sing. How do you see the connection when it comes to leadership and health when it comes to mental, emotional, and physical aspects?

Pankaj Singh: Oh my God, that's a big one. the reason I got into this was because in this whole field for last one year that I have been in. Seeing people getting down to the point where they were not just burned, they were getting mentally ill.

The problem with our society is that as you grow in leadership, 80% of us, we become isolated because either because of fear that we cannot share these strategies.

I'll give you example. Last year about this time I was working with a COO of a company. They had acquired a couple of companies about a year back, and now they were at at a point where they had to let [00:32:00] go of 60 people,

Big number for them, out of 300. And when you are making those kind of decisions, you cannot even talk to your spouse about those things.

But think about the pressure, the emotional pressure that you're going through. So we have the tendency of not having a support system for leaders.

And when, whenever I'm asked this question very, I, I do get this question asked why do, why should I get a coach? And I, say this way, my response always is, when you grew up and you played sports, when did you play the best?

When I had this coach.

Okay, so you played something when you had a coach. Now you're investing in all those things. Who's your coach in this? So my point of saying is people are getting isolated. On top of that, there is this societal pressure that if you are leader, you are not supposed to have vulnerability.

When you're a leader, you are supposed to suck it in if you're a leader. You're not supposed to throw anyone any kind of weakness. That's full of crap. The second big problem that [00:33:00] we have is if you look at medical insurance providers and the workplace benefit, if you're getting a workplace benefit at a employer, there's not a single insurance plan in the United States that covers for mental health. You have a declared clinical condition and you need a psychologist, so why are we not helping our team members? But, and again, people think that, okay, I'm sucking it in, but everything is fine. No, nothing is fine

because you don't live this life individually.

Lemme turn around and ask these leaders who think that they have got everything under control. When was the last time they spoke with their spouse?

I did this on Sunday. Sunday. This Sunday I was coaching a couple power couples. They both have a huge business. They run it and I asked, I just said, dude, very good friend of mine. I said, dude, you're saying you are present. When was you said, I love you for your wife. He said, oh, this morning. I said, okay. You remember you said this morning, you remember what was the reaction on a face after you said that you remember? What was the aroma in the [00:34:00] room when you said that? So bringing human back in leader is not just good for business, it starts with your individual self on all levels. Your individual self, not only for the business to grow it, you also have to grow yourself. And the way you grow yourself is to have a healthy relationships and to have healthy relationship, you have to be present.

You have to invest in it,

Whether it is office, whether it is home, it doesn't make a difference. So you have to be present. And it starts with understanding how you are breathing. Get back to it. There's no yoga match needed. You don't have to twist your body in 200 ways. Just go get back to the present moment.

The day you have your present moment. I call it presence power. The moment to moment awareness for full engagement. That's the first step. The moment you do that, you immediately are able to control your emotions because now you are engaging your frontal cortex. That is logical. So it allows you to respond rather [00:35:00] than react. And when you do that, it increases your cognitive clarity because your frontal cortex engages with those parts of your brain that has all the information stored and it can collect and give you a logical thing, and then you can take intentional, compassionate action.

Jeffrey Feldberg: As you're talking about this, my goodness, there is so much going on here, but as you're talking about this for the listener in Deep Wealth Nation, they are hearing this. Let's talk about the before and after, and whether it is a specific situation where you're working with an entrepreneur, founder, business owner who came to you and they're having some challenges.

Or generally speaking, you typically tend to see this. Where are most people starting from and once they've worked with you, where do they end up? What does that look like?

Pankaj Singh: I get folks join my program from all spectrum of life. So I have got some youngsters who have just started their business. I also have some people, like you, you mentioned, I mean, there have been four, five decades. [00:36:00] I have got a couple of people who have third generation in business. And that's what took the longest time for me is to come up with. Micro practices that can be used in different situations. So, there's a framework that I use, it's called awake. So when you're feeling emotionally hijacked and being able to get that awareness of what I'm feeling and what I do right now, so I can get over and pivot to something else similarly, how can I reset myself into the present?

Being able to tie back to the value that I have. So whenever the people engage with me, I always start with two common things for everyone, no matter who you are.

The very first thing is, let's work on your purpose. Let's understand what is the best you have to give to others so that we can understand.

You can be in a paradigm that you love. You are excelling, and we need to figure out how to give you a boost in that paradigm More. You are coming completely burnt out, and we need to change the paradigm that you're living.

Either way, you need to [00:37:00] understand what your purpose is. So we have a purpose assessment now that we give folks at 20 minutes.

It tells you, here are your national advantages, here are your full passion, this origin extent. And based on that, we come and say, okay, we get frustrated by these 10 things, how we can minimize so you don't have to do that work. How do we organize your life, your work, so you don't have to do what frustrates you and get you out of there first? The second thing, everybody, no matter who it is, everyone gets the micro journaling exercise with me. If you get on my program, you are going to take that, like I said, eight times a day. You write what comes to your mind. You do that 10 days, won't go back and read it. 11, if you sit down and for each of those moments that you have written, we go through one husband, five wives. So the five wives are what, when, why, where, who, and the husband is how. What were you doing? What were you feeling? Again, the reason of doing that exercise, people get it once they do it, is like I said, the brain is collecting information 24 7. Do you have the presence to collect it? [00:38:00] now just again, that's where that macro journaling for 10 days, you come back and look at 11 day, you will see patterns of how you are having rollercoaster day. Now you start getting into, okay, why I am having this rollercoaster there.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so really if I take a step back, seeing what I'm hearing you say is to be the most effective leader that I can to be firing on all cylinders, and I'm gonna use the F word fun to have some fun as well. That's really not gonna be possible unless I go within myself. And I'm able to get the best out of me before I, I can expect to get the best out of anyone else.

And as I'm talking about that, I'm thinking of that saying, be the change that you wanna see in other people. Have it start with you. So how'd that really start with me? I'm curious. I'm interested, I'm picking up on the details to support my team. They know that I'm there for them and that I'll walk the walk for them to give them the confidence and to have them want to help, to really wanna make a difference.

But that would not be possible. if I'm not fully aware. Of the present moment, how I'm feeling, where I'm at before I can extend [00:39:00] that to my team. How am I doing with that?

Pankaj Singh: Beautiful. So. I, the way I explain people is I go back to something that has been there for ages, right? And everybody accepts it. And that's Maslow's theory. Maslow's Theory has five layers to it. You start with your immediate, personal thing, then you get into next layer, and then Ultimate is your self-realization.

Now I bring in science to it and say, okay, if we just look at the geometry of this triangle. The amount of space needed to fulfill the first line takes the most time for all human beings. Then you get to the next one where it takes more time, then it takes, so it takes that time to get there. But what if, let's take the concept of minimum viable product today, the Agile.

We talk about what is a minimum viable product that we can get out there so we can start getting people engaged and we can get more revenue while we are building other functionalities. Let's do the same with our life. Let's create that minimum viable self that I can get to the realization all the way, and then I have the [00:40:00] opportunity to be able to feeling those things as I grow broader in my wealth.

Whether it is my personal wealth, whether it is my emotional wealth, whether it is my spiritual wealth. If I create that, instead of filling the triangle completely level by level, let's create two straight lines in the middle and go faster up and then keep fulfilling everything. So most of the people who are successful, they did not have everything before they got to that level of being able to give back.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay, got that. And as you're going through this, I'm just reflecting on what you're sharing. And again, deep Nation, are you picking up on this? These are little known strategies. You don't hear a lot of them out there, but to me this would be the secret sauce in terms of how to get to the next level. And seeing as you're talking about this, I'm actually reflecting on my own journey.

Where, if I'm honest about it, when I first started, I was a terrible leader. I had no experience, didn't really know what I was doing. I was either too hard on people or I was just not there enough in helping them. And eventually over time I. I learned and I learned because I [00:41:00] was paying more attention to myself.

Exactly like what you're saying. And so there's so much there. Start with ourselves and have that be the example. And when we're curious, when we're able to pick up on the details, when we get out of our head and into the present moment, that's really where the magic happens. So that said. Seeing before we go into rapid mode, I know there are so many questions I have not yet had a chance to ask.

Is there one question that I didn't ask that you'd like to share with a Deep Wealth Nation? Perhaps a topic, a message, a theme that we haven't yet covered?

Pankaj Singh: so one thing is giving up. So we are designed for instant gratification. If we don't get instant gratification, we give up. Whether it is a program, whether it is coaching, whether it is swimming, whatever it is, right? We commit to it. We don't get instant gratification. We give up with micro practices.

Two things that I want people to understand. With micro practices, it is designed to take less than 14 to 16 seconds to put you into practice of experiencing something, and the more you experience, the more you will [00:42:00] get engaged in that program. The second thing I always tell people today, whoever you are at whatever age you are the result of everything that you have gathered to the age of your coming. Now to untangle that it's not gonna happen all in one night. So if you think that you can go to a retreat for two days and come out as a zen person, that's not gonna happen. If you think that you can get on a gym machine and, run three days and lose weight, it's not gonna happen. What we are talking about is rewiring our brain. Going back to the basics of the three simple things that human the breadth for defining biologically that you alive, that's breadth. Your presence will be able to tap into the huge amount of data being processed in our brain.

And third self empathy.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay, so there you have a ation in terms of how we can look at this, what we should be doing, how we should be approaching this, and what I like about this thing, if I'm hearing [00:43:00] you correctly, and you can share Jeffrey OnBase or off base, just before we go into rapid mode. So often I know for myself and so many other entrepreneurs, we get to a point where just feel trapped, where it's constant firefighting mode to use your words.

And you've been sharing with us, the first thing that we need to do is to really break free. And get back that control, lose those golden handcuffs or those shackles because we started our business for a reason. Oftentimes we lose sight of that, and this is certainly one way to do that and hopefully have some fun along the way.

So speaking of fun and all that said, it's now really our tradition here at the Deep Podcast. It's my pleasure, it's my privilege. It's my honor for every guest to ask the same question. It's a fun question. Let me set this up for you. Sing. Imagine the movie back to the future. You have that magical DeLorean car that can take you at any point in time.

So it's now tomorrow morning, and this is the fun part, you look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car curbside, the door is open, it's waiting for you to hop on in what you do. You're not gonna go back to any point in your life sing as a young [00:44:00] child, a teenager, whatever point in time that would be.

What would you tell your younger self in terms of life lessons, life wisdom, or hey sing, do this, but don't do that. What would that sound like?

Pankaj Singh: The only thing I'll say to my younger self coming out of. Getting goosebumps already. Coming out of that training with Llama, I would ask my younger self back off because people think this is woohoo,

Never back off. Because there is taboo on this world

The name of mindfulness or whatever.

Not only you continue doing yourself the way you have done with hundreds of people. Make it more formal. Early on so you can have a bigger impact on humanity.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely love those insights and what you're sharing out there. So, hey, just because people don't agree with you, just because you're going against the grain, just because it's taboo as you're sharing with us, don't back off. Bring your gift to the world. Share it with everyone. Make the world a better place.

I. A terrific message and seeing as we wrap things up here, a listener, they have a [00:45:00] question they want to speak with you. Perhaps they even want to have some coaching with you or their team and with you. Where would be the best place online to reach you?

Pankaj Singh: Two places. So first is my website, sing leadership.com, and on LinkedIn page sing leadership.com. That's the easiest way to get hold of me.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deportation. It does not get any easier. This is all in the show notes. It's a point and click for you. Go there, reach out to sing, ask those questions. You'll come out a whole lot better than when you came in. And so that said, sing. Congratulations. It's official. This is a wrap, as we love to say here at Deep Wealth.

May you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much. 

So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these [00:46:00] episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

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So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

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Thank you so much. 

God bless.