Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Super Normalized. I'm your host, CJ Barnaby, and I like to challenge what's considered normal and invite people just like you to share your story, wisdom and truth. Each week I explore deep healing modalities, supernatural abilities, spiritual contact, and the often unexplained, whilst leaning into acceptance, personal growth, and real healing. If you're ready to step into a world where your story matters, you're in the right place. Enjoy finally being so supernormalized.
Today on Supernormalized, you'll meet Satyan, the founder of Warrior Sage.
He's guided leaders and entrepreneurs through meaningful inner shifts that ripple into their companies, families and communities. His work blends martial arts, discipline, deep spiritual wisdom, and practical transformation to help people live what he calls peak experience.
Wholehearted leadership, love without walls, and wealth aligned with truth. This is a super deep conversation and we touch on the works of Carlos Castaneda, Zen and mentorship in different ways that people probably don't really understand normally. And he does so with such deep heart and authenticity I'm sure you'll enjoy. So on with the welcome to Super Normalized. Satyin Raja Sachin, you are the founder of Warrior Sage, and it looks like from what I understand it, your life work is to bring people into the warrior power to make them more authentic in every step they take.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Absolutely. Cj, first of all, thank you for having me and everyone listening. My joy and honor to be with you today.
Yeah. For me, the warrior and the sage are aspects within all of us worthwhile cultivating, opening and expanding so that we live more of a life of true power, enlightened power, and real freedom.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, that really jibes with me because when I was young, I was seeking out a path and the books that appeared for me were Carlos Castane's books. And it talks about pursuing the path of power, which is a warrior's path. And for me, that opened up so much so quickly. And to this day I. I understand that and as a part of my own being and my core sort of drive as well.
Now, for you, what was the precise moment that you, both you and your wife knew that Warrior Sage had to exist not as a concept, but as your life's path?
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Well, I also was deeply influenced by Castaneda's work.
And in fact, our. Our space that we hold our retreats here of our home in British Columbia is called Ixtilon, inspired by his book called Journey to Ixtilon.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Wow, that's powerful. I love it.
I might have to come and study.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: With you, that'd be really cool, energetic field.
So, you know, my life has been studying different forms of warriorship, different forms of martial arts since I've been 12 years old. Kung fu is my base. Shaolin kung fu, more of a combative, reality based training. So I was very interested in what actually works inspired by Bruce Lee, what's pragmatic, not just in the metaphysical spiritual realm, but what actually works when push comes to shove, under pressure. And I took that ethos into everything, into relationship, into my whole life, that philosophy of, you know, let's absorb what's useful, let's discard what's no longer useful, and come up with our own creations, which is a Bruce Lee's essence of his philosophy. And that also then led me to many paths of shamanism, understanding the path of the inner awakening from self realization, traditions of the east, as well as deep work in relationship. I've been married with my wife for 38 years, Suzanne.
And so, you know, and that's its whole spirit. That's the toughest spiritual journey and path, that's the one with the most juice. She's the number one master. Because relationship, I think, is the crucible of where, you know, do we actually live, what we're learning.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: And so I dove into all these different paths over, well now 40 years.
And you know, at 1999 we started Warrior sage trainings with a bit of a jest from one of my mentors saying, hey, you've ran martial arts schools, you've got these other businesses, but you're. He challenged me. He thought I was playing too much of a small game.
And I was the king of my own small little pond. Right. Big fish in a small pond.
And that edge has taken me to where I'm at today, where we have trained hundreds of thousands of students on the path of the warrior sage and especially leaders, leaders who are here to potentize their lives and make a more powerful impact.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Nice.
Is there any single teaching from your early days that still anchors you 30 years later?
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
You know, I remember I have many stories from my Kung fu apprenticeship with my masters and my head instructors.
And I remember once I was very insecure, very nervous, very shy to speak in front of people. And I was an apprentice instructor. And one day, one of the instructors on a, you know, it was a very snow filled day and one of the instructors didn't show, it was getting late.
And so there's another junior instructor and then me, really a lowling. And then the master comes by and he says to the fellow senior to me and he says, I want you to go ahead. There's two classes to teach. For whatever reason, the other teacher can't make it in, right? Maybe he got sidestepped by snow or winter in Toronto, yada, yada.
So the instructor looked all nervous and tepid. He's like, I don't know if I can, how do I do that? And the master goes, you're dismissed. He kicked him out on the spot.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: And I was like, whoa.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: He was very harsh, man. And I was like, I just, I just like, I.
And then he looks at me and he goes, Mr. Raja, I'm not even a mister, I'm just a teenager. Right, Mr. Raja, can you teach both classes at the same time? And immediately I went, yes sir, no problem.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I didn't want to get kicked out. And although I stumbled, I learned how to teach two classes at the same time.
I would give myself a 2 or 3 out of 10, but I did it.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: And at the end of the day.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: He said to me, he goes, when given the opportunity to lead, lead doesn't matter what you think, what you feel, how strong you feel you are. If you got the chops, the education, the knowledge, the know how, the funding, whatever, whatever excuses you have for not leading, you got to toss them aside. When given the opportunity to lead, you lead. And that jolt has kept me going and has inspired me to just keep taking new edges.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it sounds like a very Zen sort of school there. I mean, the Zen masters were renowned for being almost brutal and making sure people were really alert and connected to their senses. So yeah, all power to your master. That actually recognized that within you too.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: You know, he saw me and then because I took that leap, he gave me more responsibilities.
And that was what I needed at that stage in life to evolve me.
I needed that extra push to go. I don't. Because I didn't believe in myself. I had someone who was willing to challenge me and say, hold on a sec, I believe you can do it. Although he didn't say it directly, he meant it.
And I think that's something that we as leaders can offer everyone. A loving, loving challenge. Not brutal, harsh challenge, but loving challenge that lifts us.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: It sounds like he actually recognized within you the notion that you've expressed of peak existence and that within that come non negotial markers that he could tell someone is living in it. How do you actually recognize those markers yourself?
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Well, integrity, congruence with who you are always shows up.
You can Feel it.
And none of us are a hundred percent, none of us are 100%. So we got to have empathy and we got to have some self love and we got to kick ourself in the ass to get ourselves off all the addictions, all of it. We need love, empathy, some self holding and we need to kick ourselves in the ass and go, hold on a sec, who am I according to my own inner integrity? Forget anyone else's, forget any system, forget any society's ideas. Am I living with my own integrity, my own truth? And if we are, and the more we start shoring that up, that's that sage element of the warrior sage. The sage is the introspection, the, the cultivation of wisdom. Wisdom doesn't come from the best things in life. It comes from our pitfalls, our challenges, our shadow and looking in and going, holy shit, I've been an asshole here. I'm like, I haven't been fully myself, I've been lazing around. I'm stuck in some dopamine addiction here and there. I gotta recapture my life force, I gotta recapture my presence, my attention.
And I believe those who do that and they recapture their attention. You can feel it. They're the master of where their presence goes. They're not pulled around by the next distraction. And I think that's the heroic job of all of us individually, as warriors, as sages, especially in this world where everything's clamoring for our attention, of our presence.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: What does integrity mean to you?
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Integrity to me means first of all with ourself and other our word being law.
If I've given myself my word, it shouldn't be, my word should be coleslaw, all chopped up and all over the place.
When I make my word law, and when I got this teaching from my teacher years ago, I was about 19, this is another metaphysical master. He was a crazy wisdom teacher. And he says to me, he goes, how lucky are you, Satya? And I go, well, I'm okay. He goes, on a scale of one to ten? I go, maybe four. I'm pretty good. Okay. He goes, you want to get to a 10? I go, yeah. He goes, make your word law.
He says, what happens in the energetic law of the universe is that when you make your word law in the minutia, you have to. He said, this is where you have to sweat the small stuff in your word, not in all the doings you do. So if you say you're going to pick up someone at 4, you pick them up at 4. If you say you're going to return their call at 2:00'. Clock, you return it at 2, not at 1:58, not at 2:03.
And he goes, the more you get into that law with your word, then the universe follows. And then after two, three, six months where you're really attuning to making your word law, then whatever you say starts to happen.
People feel the nobility and the resonance of truth in your voice.
They feel the congruency that you're always on, you're working to cultivate in yourself. There's no arrival with 100% truth. We're always slightly out.
The other night I wanted to, you know, I was like, okay, I'm going to take a week off sugar. And I lasted five days, okay. So I feel out of integrity with my own law. So okay, I'm not going to beat myself up and love myself and I'm going to kick myself. And I go, okay, now I'm going to make my word law. Because when you don't, things break down. Luck, energy, people don't come around you. Opportunity wanes, you're not trusted.
When you make your word more and more law after a while people trust you.
They feel you. Higher transactions, bigger handshake deals, more opportunity, more synchronicity. So that's how I can tell if someone is integral, is because they've got flow, luck. People around them are trusting of them and their word is law. They come, they make what they say into reality.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Sounds like a point of co creation from authenticity.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Okay, so we're looking at our results here. So leaders will often ask, will this change the numbers? What business metrics have moved most for your clients after deep inner work?
[00:13:19] Speaker B: It's, it's, it is almost so immediate. It's funny, it almost seems like interesting because once alignment starts to happen and it's fast.
When I work with someone you know from this warrior tradition, I don't like to take weeks, months. I don't act as a therapist, I act more as a attunement.
And then hey, this is the direction we clear out all the garbage in the mind, all the restrictions in the subconscious, all the emotional waverings inside of ourselves. We totally attune that rapidly. Then we do and we make those decisions. Then what happens is there's usually a powerful decision that ends up in a much higher stakes win. Always, always is the case. There's always some money left on the table that needed it. There was some resistance to consummating that now that it's gone.
Many times one's presence Increases.
So when they're doing pitches, when they're doing presentations, when they're fundraising, they're felt even in a small little square on zoom or on the computer. They're felt over a crowd of other noise because presence speaks depth and gravitas has a vibration, an integrity, authenticity.
Making a word law and potentizing your capacities has value. It's the most valuable thing in the world. As we go more AI, we need to be a more powerful being to continue in our value, not from just our doing, but from our beingness.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: I think with this influence of AI, it'll actually cause more people to search for more authenticity and reality in things.
And so a lot of the fears that people have around it that they won't really matter because people are like, well, I'd rather have the natural real thing and we can see. People know when something's off. You can just tell.
And AI doesn't have the soul that humans have, so. And never will.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: No.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: They can never have that little giggle that we just had. They can simulate it.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: But it'll never be from this genuine, true soul to soul contact.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it'll. Well, if it has a giggle, it'll be a sinister, weird one that we'll go.
So what pattern do you see in founders who scale fast but feel empty? I mean, do they need to recalibrate their trajectory?
[00:15:59] Speaker B: One of the philosophies of the warrior sage is equilibrium, equanimity. All the great sages have spoken about it. We poo poo it in the West. We think of it as some metaphysical, quantitative, above everything state. No, equanimity is being in balance, in harmonious relationship with what is. Things are going to fluctuate. As a leader, running companies, organizations, my own, I lead. You know, I've led many companies through my life and continue to do so. I advise in many.
And what happens is we go from, we're not going to go like this. Life is never going to be like that.
But life doesn't have to be high and crashing and like, it doesn't have to be like this. It could be like this.
And that's depending on our inner temperament, our inner alignment of being.
And so for me, equilibrium is essential. So with all the founders that I work with, I focus on what I call the five freedoms, inspired by one of my mentors, Kevin Nations. And those are enlightened freedom.
Sorry, enlightened power, Enlightened love or heart. Enlightened freedom. Enlightened flow and wisdom.
Power, Heart freedom, flow and wisdom. The power to source yourself and to get grounded in your true nature, in who you are and the power to have a vision and a mission that pulls you, that propels you and your organization.
That's essential. You gotta have a clean heart, an open heart. As Castaneda said, a path without heart is self destructive, destroys the world. When we bring our heart, our joy, when we cultivate affinity in our household, our teams with ourself, with life, then we have the meaning of life. Now we're not waiting until we have some windfall down the road. This is essential for business leaders. Don't wait. I've lost uncles, I've lost loved ones, I've lost how many people I know. Business leaders have lost happiness, fulfillment, beautiful relationships and family, love for the sake of a prize down the road and working neurotically, even the idea of crushing. Think about the words crushing it has become a virtue.
The term crushing it alone is not virtuous, especially if it deals with us. We have to look at the visual what's happening there and recognize this. It's more of a programming of excess doing.
When we undo this neurotic doingness, the paradox is the dao comes to us, we start flowing with life, doors open with more prosperity, more ease, more joy. The things that you were postponing now start moving towards you. The resistances start to fall.
And that's because now we're adopting, I believe, the best of the east and west, the fortitude, that focus, that drive of the west and the tranquility, the equilibrium and the foundation of inner well being of the East.
So these two are the warrior sage. And I think this is the evolution that's happening in entrepreneurship that definitely myself, my circles are leading and are aiming to bring to business leadership and all leadership. So we become a higher resonance for the world to see and we're happy. When we're not happy. We do crazy, neurotic, megalomaniac, distracting, horrible things as leaders.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
We've seen that throughout the world as we see it right now, the imbalance. And one of the major things for leaders that they would say was that they're time poor.
So what is a minimum daily practice that would produce meaningful change for somebody like that?
[00:19:52] Speaker B: If your time is full, it's because we're making it full.
First of all, philosophically, it seems like we are in time, whereas actually time is within us.
When I take folks on spiritual adventure tours, I take my leaders on spiritual adventure tours yearly to mystical sites. Peru is next in line and one day can feel like a Month stretched out in time with such ease and spaciousness.
Time restriction is the root of it. Is excess importance attributed to things.
The more we attribute excess importance, emotional, psychological, energetic importance, the more there's energetic drag on the manifestation or the delivery of that experience.
In other words, what the Eastern masters have been saying, start to relax that grip of control more and more. When you do, you win back your time. And you'll find a lot of what we're doing is excess doing. To somehow think we're doing stuff that's important, but much of it, if you look at the 80, 20 rule, there's about 80% of the stuff that we're doing, which is bullshit. 20% is effective. And that's why myself, you know, I make sure I'm surrounded by, you know, my guides who can help dial that in. And also I have, with those I work with, I take a look at their schedule and then we take a look and we go, oh, my goodness, there's all this. And rather than filling it with more stuff, we create more pleasure, more joy, more time with family, more time with nature, more time with our soul, with breath, with the joys, with our hobbies, doing nothing, right? And that's the only way we're going to. If we must be, we must come to greater harmony ourselves for there to be greater harmony in the whole.
We can work the greater harmony in the whole and be duplicit with our own life.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I say that to my wife sometimes because she gets caught up in time like that. And I say, look, I want you to stop and figure out how to get bored.
She gets it. So that's a good thing.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: In my book, the Transcendent CEO, there's dedicated to extreme laziness. My philosophy of extreme laziness. Okay, I'm a driven man. I run companies, I've done lots of stuff. I'm a martial artist. I'm driven.
But the heart of the. If you look at the yin and Yang philosophy of China, Japan, Korea and others, the yin and yang, for those of you don't know the symbol, it's a circle and it's like a fish and an S in the middle. And the dark is the yin and the light is the yang. But the heart of yin is Yang. It's a circle, it's the opposite. And the heart of Yang is yin, the heart of it.
So I realized that if I'm going to be focused and intentional and deliberate, I need to have the heart of that. Be pure nothingness, stillness.
And the more stillness I cultivate through meditation, through being in nature, through dedicating more time to loving life, loving my wife, loving my children, loving my health, loving my fellow community, loving nature.
The more I offer that, paradoxically, the more focused I can be. It's like the Bruce Lee one inch punch. You're relaxed, relaxed and at the end, boom. That's when you put in the last boom and send a man flying in the same way. We can master that energy where we are totally, I like to call it like being like Archimedes. We're so masterful with our energy, we're able to create big waves, big movement, lift the world with the path of least resistance. And that's a training. It requires undoing a lot of psycho emotional imprints we have around struggle, worth, value.
Who should value me?
Am I being loved enough?
Will people see me as someone valuable if I work to the bones? All these deep imprints that are coming not just from us, but ancestrally.
So that's gotta be sorted and healed and integrated.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: Do you have a method for aligning personal values with board level decisions? When the stakes are high.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Be integral.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Circles all the way back there.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: There's no method. Just don't fudge with your principles and you'll be a billionaire in your spirit. And then your worth will be more and more and higher level business leaders will want to do business with you because you're unshakable with even bigger numbers and bigger possible stakes. You're not willing to sacrifice yourself for the dollar.
And if you can do that company wide. And integrity is first, you know, whatever. At this level of intelligence, people should know what integrity is.
The fudging of it is why we've got the problems that we have and the lack of trust in companies, corporate structure, billionaires, entrepreneurs. There's a lot of distrust in business.
Just like there's the common theme of mistrust and dislike of lawyers. It's also with business, okay, people as a common thing with a common person. Why?
Because of the compromise of integrity for the quick gain.
The enlightened warrior sage. The warrior sage business leader, the transcendent leader. They're not thinking of the immediate gain alone. For them, reputation, their significance, the long term value, the adding to the life force, the energy of others through their offerings is a dedication, it's a devotion.
And that's something to cultivate. And if we're not there yet, then you're going to be left behind.
As our jobs, as other things can be replaced fast. Dollars can be replaced through AI, robotics, innovation, all the things that are going to happening, those of us who have more realness, more truth, those of us who have been integral during these times will be standing out even more. So everything will become more and more fake. And so what is real will become more real. And might I dare to say the most valuable thing is our realness and the truth. We walk as we go deeper into the world of artificial intelligence.
Soul and human intelligence is the most precious commodity.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Absolutely agree. Absolutely agree.
When you're working with clients, how do you weave martial discipline with spiritual compassion during a live intervention?
[00:27:20] Speaker B: Cj, you've got some really great questions, you've been asking me deeper ones, but I really appreciate that, so thank you.
Thank you. Well, with my personal clients who are founders, CEOs, investors, business leaders, when they come to my retreats or to my personal space, we actually do executive self defense training.
I actually do physical self defense training that they would personally face like as if they're walking into their car with their briefcase or walking into a elevator or they're going to an ATM or they're going to a high stakes meeting or. And so we, and we do some real life, very powerful training drills men and women until one becomes absolutely grounded, centered under duress.
And that ability to stay centered, grounded and come out safe under high duress intensity in my dojo, if you can go through that and you're well trained when you come out of that, even if it's a pure beginner, when they come out of that experience, there's this part in them that goes, my body is safe.
And all of a sudden their presence drops in deeper. There's a feeling of self empowerment that's way beyond mental reframing, coaching, mindset development, plant medicine. Because now your mammalian body has been kicked up, developed, and your mammal goes, I am safe, I am powerful.
And that shifts your whole physiology.
Something happens. It's not like there's an arrogance that happens, it's, there's like a settling that happens with women. It's really, you could feel it immediately with the men. Their spines go stronger, their hearts open, they become more fearless, more just grounded in their body. And women just feel like more safe to be themselves.
And their hearts start to bloom. So it's interesting. And then we take those same principles, that energy we anchor, then we anchor it into their work life, we anchor it into their home life so they're able to be under duress, but calm in presence, in equanimity, in love.
And that's a cultivation. There's no arrival of that you're always going to grow in that capacity. And so the dojo is real in my training because I like to make sure that we're learning at a body level, at a mind level, emotional and spiritual, because then the learning and the imprint and the cultivation is complete.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Do you have any questions that you ask clients who feel stuck but can't name it?
[00:30:11] Speaker B: Yes, because I work very somatically, meaning I'm tuning into the body. I don't take a cerebral approach or a reframing approach or some type of just communication approach.
I like for my clients to dive deep into where they feel the discomfort and the, and how deeply they feel it. We tend to operate over it as leaders. We tend to operate over the stuff that's inside of ourselves, but that's the stuff that's talking to us.
It's a message from the inner voice. That's not verbal voice of our mind. It's our heart's voice, our soul's voice, our body intuition, our gut feeling. I'm putting that all in one category.
And that has such great value because that's actually about 70% of our wisdom is down there. 30% of our navigation is more up here. But we rely more on this or we think we are, but much of our decision and attunement and wisdom comes from here. If we attune and give it the space, the reverence and the awareness that it needs.
So then I take them through a process where we ask that very discomfort, that contraction, that something that's off or something feels stuck. We give it qualities, what shape, where do you feel this? And then we ask that what's its goal for us?
What does it want us to achieve, to realize, to attain?
And this continues to open in our being. And then the beautiful thing is when we get to the top of that, if you will, expansion, the very thing that was bothering us, the wisdom comes from within us and we have our own realignment within our own being.
So rather than a cognitive approach, I like to take this deep body level approach to unravel the wisdom that's actually. Then the person, the client has their own answer. They know exactly what to do next, they know exactly how to implement it. And then I'll ask questions regarding implementation and grounding into reality. Like, okay, how are we going to live this truth in our life?
And I hold them accountable to it. And that's how we make really rapid progress.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Nice.
When you have groups and they meet as peers, how do you turn comparison into communion?
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Comparison?
This is one of the enemies of the warrior sage.
And it's the biggest enemy you have inside yourself. And we have in our side. One of the fun things I do is I actually have, when we do group sessions, we do fun out loud. What I, you know, I ask everyone in a fun, humorous way, go ahead. And what are you comparing yourself to?
And is there anyone you're comparing yourself and why?
And so I might say, well, I'm going, well, I know that Bob there, he's like made 10 times more money than I.
And I'm comparing. I should be where he, I should have been there in my age. And he's so younger than me.
[00:33:30] Speaker A: God, I do that.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: And then everyone does their own version and becomes really hilarious. We lay the dirty eggs on the ground because no one is free of this. Everyone. And then what happens? And it might not someone in the room. It could be an icon, a figure, a figurehead. But then what happens is then the person who's been pointed out, we say, what's the gift you have to give?
Well, what I want to share with you is the reason I've made this money at a young age is. And how you can too. So we turn the comparison into something that's separating you into a gift and a mentoring and a co coaching for each other. So the very thing that we suppress is the very gift that we have to give.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Fostering connection.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: Yeah, another softer Zen method.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Don't have to get the stick out with that. So that's good.
So what role do dyadic practices play? And when are they superior to solo meditation or journaling?
[00:34:40] Speaker B: I don't know if they're.
I think all of those are daily practices.
Okay, all of that. And I think, and from my experience, all of them is valuable. You gotta find your dao, your pleasure. What really works for me is I like to start off the morning with meditation. You wake up, I brush my teeth, I wash my face, and I do a meditation. And for me, the meditation is a letting go, a grace meditation, a surrender meditation to the higher power.
So all I do is I listen to some beautiful sacred song or I read some scripture. I find something that's moving to my soul and then I just surrender. I say, you know what? I got the rest of the day for my will.
I'm going to give you this hour to tune into what your will is. What's thy will be done? And so I tune in. I just let go.
Sometimes I feel like my mind's so busy, but I keep letting go and surrendering. So I don't Try to steal my mind. I'm just in a state of surrender. I just let whatever come up, thoughts, emotions, body sensations, noise, I just surrender it.
And then that deep surrender after that, however, minutes I want to do that meditation. Then all these other practices really are powerful. But you've set the stage not in doing, but in letting go. And from that letting go, all now your doings will flower from this place of deep stillness.
Not neurotic.
Gotta get it, gotta get it. It's coming from stillness. And then guess what? Then the fruits of that stillness through your action, magnify stillness and peace.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: That's a good feedback loop.
[00:36:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: How do you measure intangible gains like presence, clarity and trust? So teams can track their own progress?
[00:36:39] Speaker B: We actually do subjective ratings with each other. So in our team trainings, we might sit across from each other like this.
Okay, so I'll. Are you up for a hot seat with me for about a minute?
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Okay, go for it. So on a scale of we barely know each other, well, we've had a nice immediate connection. So on a scale of 1 to 10, in terms of trustability, I would give you an 8 out of 10. And why I give you an 8 out of 10 is because you've been very present. You seem intelligent. I just get a sense of deep embodied wisdom from a life well lived. And I get that there's goodness in your heart and that you wouldn't jerk me around. I just sense that to get to a 10, I would just need more time to spend with you and to know you deeper. That's about it. Okay, so now your turn. You gotta give me a number one to 10. And I don't care if you give me a two in front of the whole world. It doesn't matter.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: I would sit you between 8 and 9 as well too, because Satya and I really appreciate the way that you are sharing. The wisdom is embodied, obviously, and your understanding comes from a place of truth and authenticity. And to me, that's most important.
I hear your truth and I know.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: You'Ve lived it and say, to get to a 10, get to a 10.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: I'd have to come study with you, I think.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: All right, there we go.
Thank you, my friend. So they seem confronting. But imagine getting the same reflection from two, three, four or five of your peers. Teammates. We do this with many dimensions. And guess what? The growth journey is accelerated rapidly because we get real.
It's not looking at a wall and listening to notes and falling asleep to the next speaker. Then more things to remember. Do I need to remember green ypng or what else do I gotta remember? Rather than remembering, we get people to be in deep in real relating with real exercises. So then the experience like this is embodied and it's immediate and you learn. So we had that mutual recognition. Imagine some person getting six, seven, six from three people and they all had something congruent to share in their own way. That person's gonna go, wow, there's some good learning here for me.
And it's given not in a reprimanding way, it's given with here's a number and here's what you're doing well and hey, this is what it's gonna take to get to a 10 in my books.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool. It makes it more practical and engaging.
[00:39:15] Speaker B: Yes. And fun. And at the end of the day there's more camaraderie, which is the magic.
It's the magic sauce that used to be in the old days, you know, all for one, one for all the musketeers.
Right. You know, in the companies I've worked in, some have spacklings, some have it with one team but not in another team. Some are in disaster with their team dynamics. Everyone just doesn't like each other and are so siloed and are just flat. And you can see it in the outcomes.
But once you fire up that magic, that human dynamic in a family, in your own self, in organization, I mean, you become unstoppable. Right.
[00:40:00] Speaker A: How do you coach high achievers to bring tenderness into hard conversations without losing their decisiveness?
[00:40:08] Speaker B: That's really good.
The lotus sword.
This is the symbol of the warrior sage in my company. The sword represents truth.
The lotus represents love and consciousness.
And so as leaders, sometimes we have to make very powerful, very quick, very decisive decisions. Sometimes you have to communicate in a very direct way.
One of my old spiritual teachers, Anjali, she said to me, the truth said without love is a lie.
So I could hammer someone.
But if it's with all this negative charge, then we're adding all this stuff and it distorts the message. So the most important thing that we share is make genuine contact with the other, get on their side.
Even if it's someone you have to dismiss and they weren't working out for you or you know, it's time for them to move on for whatever reason, it's not a fit in those challenging situations, connect with them, get on their side, still feel what's their life about, what do they value, what do they wish to get out of life and aim with compassion to speak in a way, directly, cleanly, without fluffing around. Be direct, get what you need to say across and communicate that. And trust that truth said with care. Truth said with care will land.
Truth said without care will always be rejected. You'll always get fingers. And even if you say truth with care, some people might come back with a rejection, with a retort, with a wall. But at least you in your own standard know that you gave it with care and cleanness.
So again, that's a cultivation, an art, and something to drill. But the essence I wanted to share.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: Powerful.
So what signals would tell you that a leader or growing warrior's home life needs attention before their business can grow?
[00:42:26] Speaker B: Oh, I've lived through this.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: Okay, okay.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: That's why I'm mentoring business leaders. Because I almost lost my wife and kids with a spectacular career being teaching around the world with thousands of people and starving my own wife and my children's attention. And I gotta work, I gotta be present on that forever because I am a driven man. So I gotta be present to that.
But I'll tell you something.
Years ago, I almost drowned in an accident. And this, I had this wake up call in Hawaii. I was in the middle of teaching a.
A couple's retreat with my wife. And halfway through, I was challenging the men to go out in the ocean with me. Farther and farther. And I was trying to swim up on this crazy perch and I got tossed into this area called the washing machine. It's like a whirlpool of treacherous lava rock. And I almost died.
And it was a miracle how I survived. It's literally a miracle.
Everyone has ended up there, has passed, somebody got spit back on the shore. And after that I went, holy shit. And I got this deep rescripting of my being.
My ego got an ass whooping, got a drowning, okay?
And I said, you know what, what's most important?
And then I looked at all my businesses. I looked at stuff and I went, you know, there's a lot of stuff here that I need to simplify in my life.
And I started simplifying the structure, the form. I tried new things to simplify my life. And now I've created a life of really simplicity, where I'm a servant to positive impact businesses and investors and founders.
And I'm a guide to things that are going to better the world in a good way, in many dimensions, which is my heart's calling.
And I don't know if I would have evolved unless I had that ass whooping.
And so I think What I want to share about that is it's okay to.
As my kung fu master said to me a long time ago, it's better to be humble all the time than to be humiliated all at once.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: So many good truths in this one I can tell you.
[00:45:01] Speaker B: So I try to live by that. I fail often, but I try to live by that. And I think as, as leaders, I really feel this sense of spine with heart. The old school leader was a lot of spine, less heart. The new wave, new age school leader, a lot of heart. But we've lost the spine.
And so if we have spine and heart, I believe that's the evolution that's calling us now so we can be the best of Yin and yang.
[00:45:34] Speaker A: How do you teach abundance without feeding greed?
[00:45:46] Speaker B: Really beautiful questions you're asking, cj.
Greed is our ego's desire to stay safe.
And it shows up as the scarcity of less or the scarcity of greed.
So behind greed is scarcity.
There's a scarcity within.
And it doesn't matter if the person has a lot of money, many, many millions of dollars, billions of dollars, if they're driven by what looks outwardly as greed.
Greed is disguised scarcity inside. Their ego feels not enough, not worthy enough. They weren't given the love, the attention, the praise, the acknowledgement of who they were as a youngster or as a child. And so they developed this she shell that drives them, this personality, these identities they've developed that drives them. But it's really underneath it is scarcity and it's also the other end.
And so when people and when I work with leaders and I go, okay, let's go deep into this. Where do you feel scarce?
What are you fearful of losing?
What's the worst thing that you can lose? Tell me, what are you scared of losing?
It's a very confrontive question for me. I'm scared of losing my. Other than my immediate family and loved ones. I'm talking material, let's just skip the material right now.
But I do confront them with loved ones too. If I were to feel what I'm fearful of losing my home.
I love it here and I do my retreats here. I'm fearful of that. I've scarce and I. And so this is my work to do. Because the interesting thing is all these unconscious impulses that are sourced in scarcity, they show up as fear, then show up as greed in its megalomaniacal form.
They self destruct.
They always self destruct.
Scarcity always self destructs.
So we've Got to get to the heart of it and what's happening.
I can give you an example. One of my longtime revered clients, he had a stagnation in his company for 12 years in getting funding and crossing the finish line, getting it put out there, incredible technology, just struggle after struggle. And then he engaged me and the first thing I started off with was his scarcity patterns.
He comes from up Ireland and he didn't want to break away from his. He didn't want his fellow brothers to think, oh, look, he's become a rich guy and not one of us now.
And so he was subconsciously repelling on many levels and sabotaging on subtle levels, abundance and this work coming online. And you wouldn't do that consciously. You think, oh that's stupid. Why you would ever do that? But our unconscious is huge. It's big, it affects even it can override and mostly is overriding our conscious logic of why we would ever do that. And so when I went into it and we transformed that scarcity through our methods and our transformational methods, that scarcity turned totally around. And within like a year and a half, he had a very powerful exit, multi million dollar exit. And the technology has now come out into the world. And the mission of this technology is basically creating a world that doesn't break down. It can sense when technology or mechanical engineering is going to break down way in advance so we can avoid the major accidents that happen.
And so the shift within and to go into the heart of scarcity is what every great leader, it's a worthy task to do. Because the paradox is when we come out to the other side, we start to have a type of wealth and we become magnetically wealthy.
Because we feel wealthy, we feel whole, we feel complete now. And then we start to have more gratitude for what we already have. So when you, when you want what you already have, you start getting more of what you want.
But if we're always I don't have enough, then that hungry ghost can never, never be filled.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: Where do you see spiritual bypass showing up among successful founders? And how do you call that forward?
[00:50:42] Speaker B: There's a trend with plant medicines of which I'm a, well, 35 year master facilitator of and train hundreds and hundreds of facilitators way before this was known. And so I am a deep advocate of this in context of sacred plant medicines, ayahuasca, psilocybin, many different master teacher plants in the right context, with right mastership, right, you know, there has to be a depth to this.
There's a lot of bypassing where people go for plant medicine ceremonies.
And even if the people wear the traditional garb and even have the indigenous background, may not be scrupulous, maybe shallow in their depth or their understanding, or maybe coming from a voodoo type tradition where it's more like wizardry wars than deep spiritual enlightenment, because we don't know in the west the difference between depth and a beginner than anyone seems potent to us if they have the right spiritual language or are flowery in some way. This is the spiritual bypass plant medicine. Spiritual work is meant to make you a stronger warrior.
It's not meant as a relief from the struggles of life, nor is it meant on its own to be a master teacher.
They are master revealers. You must take your lotus sword in your own hand, take the reins of self responsibility, self creation, take the wisdom you get from these realms, and instead of bypass it, vow not to do the next.
It could be 10 years from now, the next ceremony, until you've implemented and embodied what you've learned on this round.
And so that's the spirit. Any meditation, any spiritual endeavor where we know more wisdom than we're living, we already are bypassing. We're looking for more peak states rather than grounding peak experience of life.
And this is the evolution of the wisening of the spiritual path of leadership is we must now cultivate the next stage, which I believe is, is peak existence. Living a harmonious life of equilibrium with our faith, our family, our finances, our fitness and our fun and philanthropy and fucking and whatever else you want to put in there. Okay.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: Are there any single practices that you recommend that reduce reactivity during rapid growth phases?
[00:53:29] Speaker B: They are. The first inner psychological one is. Make a note. What are the things that you have the most charge with?
1 to 10. Okay, that teammate, this situation. Write them down. What's got you the most? Where do you have the most emotional charge, the most tension with? Okay, then scan that, feel that, magnify that feeling.
Magnify it, don't suppress it, turn it up. And paradoxically, the more you turn up the images, the thoughts, the emotions and the body sensations, and the more you see the end of it, the problem. Go to the end of it. Don't think positive, think worst. What's the worst fricking thing that can happen? Go right to the end until it hurts in your imagination. Images, thoughts, and then that cleanses you of the worst thing. And at the end you go, well, that's not too bad.
And you brush yourself off energetically, mindset wise. And now You've lived out in your ego, fear, minds, method of the worst thing that can happen. And you're still alone, you're still okay, you're fine.
And then what you do is you turn down the importance.
So you know how there's bass and treble and maybe mid range on a basic amplifier or audio or radio.
Imagine importance is the base and you. And it's like, oh, it's too, the base is too loud. Turn. And I like to train my, train my CEOs in turning the base of importance down.
It's an inner practice.
There's many other subtle ones, psychological tension, release. But this is a psychological one that you can do in the middle of anywhere in a boardroom. Just notice, oh, I'm making this far too important. Relax. Importance. Well, I'm making closing the deal important. Just even that energy of excessive leaning in is making things too important.
Someone else is going to lean away. The more you lean in, the more they lean away.
But if you just lean into this, you're not leaning in or leaning. Okay, forget it. I don't give a shit. Lack of political, but the more you're here, you're not leaning in or away.
That's the energetic artistry and the subtle black belt teaching I'm giving to the leaders who are picking this up. Okay, lower the importance.
Yeah.
[00:55:58] Speaker A: It made me think of Carlos Castaneda again, just circling all the way back because he talks about in the books how self importance, when it's magnified too much, that's when you get a petty tyrant. And they're the worst people in the world. People say they think they're doing good, but basically they're focused on destroying everything without knowing it.
[00:56:19] Speaker B: Three. Three types of importance.
Yeah, actually, yes, two types of importance. Self importance and importance on other stuff.
Importance on other stuff, that's a lifelong cultivation to turn the dial on it down. And when you do, you become more tranquil, become Buddha, like more Taoist.
You become more harmonious and things come to you magically. Sounds paradoxical, but they do. It's just, it's physics metaphysics.
Then self importance has two flavors. The nasty one we know of. Megalomania.
I think so much of yourself. Okay, self importance, that's hiding deep insecurity. Anyone who's showing up like that is hiding deep insecurity.
Whether they know it or not, they've developed a false identity of this self aggrandizing version.
The insidious version is self diminishment.
That's the other side of self importance.
Self importance Also shows up as I'm not good at. I'm. I'm not worthy. I'm just a peon. I'm just a little.
[00:57:34] Speaker A: That's the inner asshole, I call it.
[00:57:36] Speaker B: Yes.
You got it. You got it. So either one, the self aggrandizing or the self diminishing. When we see and catch ourselves in any of those and learn to come to our center and not be a slave of either one of those mindsets or those identities, and we break out of that power. That's enlightened power.
[00:58:04] Speaker A: Satyam, we've come to the end of the podcast. I think that's a great place to end right there. That's perfect. Enlightened power is what everyone is actually searching for without even knowing it, as far as I'm concerned.
And look, how can people find you and your work and engage with you?
[00:58:18] Speaker B: My website's warriorsage.com.
i'm on Instagram. I'm on all the social media, LinkedIn, satyanraja. And what I always love to do is those of you who have been moved, inspired. If you're a business leader and you would like some advisory, some consulting, you want to reflect something by me, just hit me up. My email is Satyanawari Sage. Or reach me on any of my channels and I'd happy to be a ear and give you some kind reflection from my purview.
[00:58:51] Speaker A: Excellent. Thank you, Satyan, for all that you've shared. I'm sure there's some people out there that will get great benefit from this. And for the people that need that little bit of tuning, they're just waking up too. They probably going, wow, wow, wow. Okay, so thank you.
[00:59:04] Speaker B: A true joy, cj. A true joy. And I look forward to hosting you and welcome you to Ixtalon. We'll have our journey.
[00:59:12] Speaker A: I'd love to do that. All right, all right. I'll just say goodbye to the listeners.
An awesome talk with Satyan just now. I really love all that he shared there, and it actually prompts me to get back into the books of Carlos Castaneda and to maybe even seek out a martial arts teacher myself. I think that I may actually have to get over to do his course because it sounds to me like it'd be right on point. If you've enjoyed today's show, please like and subscribe. If you're on YouTube, that'd be very appreciated. And if you're on a podcast app, the best thing you can do for me is give me five stars and say something nice. And that'd be very appreciated. If you think a friend should hear this episode, please share that to them now. And thank you so much for listening. Until next episode, it's bye for now.
