Vani Rao
When we forgive, we are doing it from a heart centered perspective. We are doing it from a place that we say. And this is one of the foundational concepts of my practices. People are doing the best they can with the resources they have at the time.

Jeff Ma
Hello, and welcome to Love as a Business Strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We are here to talk about business, but we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. And I'm your host, Jeff Ma. It's great to be here as always, where I get to have conversations and meet people who practice these things in real life and have lived these things in their lives. And my guest today is Vani Rao. Vani has had a career that has spanned through education, project management, D&I work i, Oil & Gas for quite some time. But today, she is an executive coach at VTK consulting LLC, where she specializes in helping with mental and emotional release. And I have a lot of questions are so welcome. Welcome to the show Vani. How are you today?

Vani Rao
I'm great. Thank you, Jeff. Yeah, mental and emotional release is kind of an earful. So, yeah, actually, I think what we have in common is we're both doing work from the heart.

Jeff Ma
There we go. Absolutely, and Vani. One of the pillars that we have here love his administration, one of our main tenants is what we simply call forgiveness, right. And it can be a complex and difficult thing to truly understand and achieve for people. And everyone has had a different approach or different philosophies around it. So I'm really looking forward to learning from your perspective and your experience today around forgiveness and understanding the approach that you take in it. But before we begin, I first want to hear about you, I want to hear about your story. I want to hear about what brought you because I listed you know, your career through oil and gas and all these things. But what brought you here today now talking about forgiveness with me today? Like what got you here?

Vani Rao
Yeah, so it's interesting, right? Because you talked about my journey. And that's what brought me to who I am. So I think the the two liner is, I built a career out of leading from my head, I did all of the stuff that we talked about is the good Asian immigrant story, right? When I've got an MBA, worked in oil and gas, did consulting, I was really, really good at solving complex business problems. From a fault perspective. That makes sense, right? finding flaws correcting them. And what I found is the deeper and deeper I got into my corporate work, the more unsatisfied I was, I found there was a piece of me that I was leaving behind. And I am a very compassionate, thoughtful person. And I tended to put that on the shelf. I after people saw that I was intelligent and could solve problems is when I would show you my heart because I didn't want you to look down on me. And in the last, I'd say, five to seven years, I had things systematically fall apart around me, physically, for my career, you know, major surgeries, had a marriage fall apart. And through all of these, I was like, huh, my desk job isn't bringing me any kind of comfort. So I started going to Hawaii to study the Hawaiian healing arts with my teachers, Dr. Matt James and Dr. Patrick Scott. And what I found is these are leaders who are uber intellectual, right, both PhDs and both start everything with we're leaders from the heart. And I just kind of looked in, like, you know, the first time you hear that, and you've been working in corporate America, you go, What a crock. Leading from the heart, they must not be that bright. Right. And I started learning that your heart is actually much smarter than your head. And I got comfortable with, I can turn down mental processes and actually listened to my gut and listen to my heart, which meant going around and telling people the mistakes I've made, being vulnerable, asking for forgiveness. So like all of his chapters in your book when I was reading them, I was just I was chuckling because I said, Hmm, looks like they caught a caught a part of my story too, because I was so busy being a badass that I'd forgotten how to be human and So in the last couple of years, that's what I've been practicing is heart centered healing. I help people let go of negative emotions at both, you know, the mental level rational processes and at the emotional level things that hold them back from being their true authentic selves and having the best experience of their lives wherever they are. Does that help?

Jeff Ma
Absolutely. And those are some pretty bold and powerful things you're saying here of being able to release and let go and become, you know, live their best lives and all these things that I think many skeptics would kind of hear that story and not be able to see themselves in it, right? I think many of us, we do work from a blame centric kind of fault centric work environment. So let's start from scratch, I guess then let's start from that point. Where, where do we start? Whether you want to talk about mindsets? Or if there's tangible steps? Where do we go when we start from a place of hey, you know, let's just call it the average or typical corporate environment right now, I'm not just not to generalize all of them. But we have a saying of we want to bring humanity back to the workplace. And we use the word back intentionally implying that it's not all there. And so

Vani Rao
nor was it, nor was it completely missing. Yes, yes. It has been there because we did build community in the workplace.

Jeff Ma
Agreed? Yes. Yeah. So where does that where does that leader or that person or that environment? Where do we start? When we're, that's what that's our starting point. Where do we go?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, so I think the tough part is, you know, if you get folks who live in what we call the mental body, the intellectual space, right, we, we tend to struggle with terms like servant leadership, and, you know, you all talk about it so beautifully in the book about what it takes to be vulnerable, and, you know, show up and be okay, with not being perfect. So let's put that aside. Because servant leadership is a complex topic, a growth mindset, right, what Dweck talks about in her book, you know, whether you have a fixed mindset, or a growth mindset, sometimes, you know, I tried that term, and one of my jobs and I had a senior vice president, look at me and go Vani, that's so naive, there are only so many jobs. So, you know, clearly in his world, there was a zero sum relationship for me to succeed, somebody has to fail. So, you know, there's only so much that a middle manager is going to go look up to somebody and go, can we stop for a second, let me talk to you about, you know, an abundance, mindset and growth. And, you know, because he'd have been, like, Get out of my office. And he was pretty close to right, because he had already decided, life was a zero sum game. So for me, one of the easiest places to start is with forgiveness. Because forgiveness is about you. It's actually not about the person, you're forgiving. It's about releasing those energies that hold you back. And the way that we like to describe it in Hawaii is, you know, we tend to carry around black bags. And you know, like Mohammad, I traveled to India all the time. And my suitcases are large enough to carry bodies. Right. And sometimes we carry around our negative emotions, like those black bags. And when you've been sitting around, right, and you're carrying them on your shoulder, you don't actually realize how heavy your load is until you actually put it down. Forgiveness allows you to put down that luggage you've been carrying around. Because when we talk about forgiveness, we're talking about things that we hold on. And I'll tell you the previous fawning from five years ago, if like, Jeff, suppose you and I were friends in the 70s, if you were alive back then but you know, back in the 70s, if you had wronged me, and we started talking today, and for whatever reason, right? You served me cold tea, I would be like, Well, Jeff, don't you remember in 1973. And I would have started from then to whatever was happening in the moment being present in the moment. And what forgiveness allows you to do is come to this moment so that I could actually look at you and go, you know, hey, look just in the off chance that you like you thought I liked cold tea. Could you go warm it up? And I don't start at 1973 Because a lot of people when they are carrying you through their pain, they start at that root, they started that source that they've been holding on like this very heavy Indian suitcase. And so forgiveness It is primarily about, Hey, can I help you put that suitcase down? I mean, so if you think about it in a corporate setting, right, it's very tangible. You're carrying something heavy, that doesn't serve a purpose. If you're going to go run a race, wouldn't you like to run it without carrying a heavy suitcase? If you're going to go solve a problem, wouldn't you like to do it when your head is clear? When you're, you know, when your system is running optimally? So all of the types of business language that I had come to, you know, be very familiar with, I just translated into forgiveness and said, Wow, yeah, when I put that black back down, all of a sudden, I felt lighter. Right. And I can actually, you know, if we go back to that simple example of, you know, you and I having some tea, I actually get to be present with you in the moment. Right? And isn't that the whole, you know, buzz right now with mindfulness is, can you be present in the moment? And can we focus on what you're doing right now, to move forward, to move forward as an individual to move forward as, you know, a team if you and I were working together? And then how are we looking to move the enterprise forward? Because at the end of the day, I am a classically trained MBA, and I love creating value, whether you create value for an individual or whether you create value for an enterprise, I was always looking at, how do we become more profitable? And if we're talking about spiritually profitable, wouldn't you want to walk around with a finely tuned instrument called your human body? It's a it's a, it's a thought, right?

Jeff Ma
You know, it makes a metric ton of sense.

Vani Rao
If you like, measure, right, if you like metrics, it's it. It's a visual that is, is easy to put your arms around.

Jeff Ma
Yes, I'll do okay. I

Vani Rao
thought I heard it. But

Jeff Ma
yeah, how do we I didn't say but but I'm gonna say but but help me get to the next step. Right. So I'm with you, I, I am someone who 100% is with you on forgiveness is for the for yourself, like being able to forgive frees you from the burden, and the pain and the suffering. But when you look at the kind of average interaction, I guess, workplaces are not just human interactions. If you wronged me Vani if you serve me cold tea, if you will,

Vani Rao
which you know, in our culture is kind of a cardinal sin. So I'm just saying, Sure.

Jeff Ma
I am, like, forgiving you would be so advantageous for me, helped me? I think most people will be and I am a lot of times is that I am waiting or needing an apology from you. While the forgiveness is for me to to free me. It's transactional, right? Like, I feel like, even if I tell you, hey, you've upset me, You've hurt me. And if your attitude is like, Well, yeah, it is what it is. I am still in 1973. Right, I will still be living in the moment that you have not expressed remorse for how so how do we get from this point? To guess freeing ourselves from it?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, so so a couple of really complex things, and I'll try to unpack it a little bit is that when we're looking for something outside of ourselves, that's the wrong focus. And again, that's probably the topic of a much larger discussion. But you know, forgiveness is about looking inward as opposed to looking externally. So the I'm looking for, you know, you to suffer you to give me an apology for you to be you know, on bended knee and going please forgive me this, you know, you are holier than thou, that is a focus that says, externally is where I'm looking for either my positive emotions or source of power. And what we learn and what I teach is your greatest power actually comes from within. And so when someone wrongs you, recognizing that you forgive them as an attribute of the strong and that's what you know, Mahatma Gandhi, actually, you know, said years ago, forgiveness is an attribute of the strong, the weak cannot forgive. And so if, you know, we want to say in a workplace we're always talking about you know, strengthen, showing up forceful and assertive with you know, all those positive characteristics. Forgiveness is actually an attribute of the strong because I'm not actually looking for anything. I'm looking, you know, figuratively put to put the suitcase down? I actually don't need your interaction to put it down. I think an example might be helpful, would you say? Sure. So I was in, you know, one of my corporate settings a few years ago, and one of my mentees came up to me, and she was carrying law carrying around a lot of pain, and you can see it. And one of the things that cracks me up, especially now is the way that we tend to think that there's a part of us we leave at home when we come to the office, and there's a part of us that we leave at the office when we come home. And we're just one single vessel, right? I mean, that's why it's so important. When we say bringing your authentic self, it's like, there's a part of me that I lock in the closet, and then come to the office. And this woman had a history of drug abuse with a parent in her family. And she was really, really struggling because, you know, as a, as a young woman, she loved her mom. And she knew her mom was going to take advantage of her and her mom had reappeared in her life after being gone for a while. And that burden was on her and I could see it in the office. And I was like, Alright, come into my office, let's close the door. This is where you're going to tell me what's going on. And I don't care where it's occurring. Because she's like, it's not office related. And I was like, again, I don't care. I need to know what's holding you back. So we ended up talking, she's crying, and she says, my mom's back in my life. And I don't know what to do. And I said, Well, I have this, this exercise, it's called forgiveness. And she was like, I have nothing to forgive. And I was like, so this exercise called forgiveness. And we actually went through the exercise. Because what had happened is over the years, she was carrying all of that pain as a little girl, being neglected by her mom going through this, I promise, I'm going to change and then I'm going to take everything from you. And in that process, she had sent a lot of negative negative energy out of her system. For that she needs to forgive her mom. And in her mind, she needed to ask for forgiveness, because that love she felt for mom was coming through a lens of pain, fear, guilt, you know, unmet expectations. So we got through it. And I said, and that's the first part. So you know, like in your book, when you all talk about forgiveness requires action. Just go lateral, what we say is forgiveness requires setting boundaries. So once we had gone through forgiveness, what I told her is, you haven't set boundaries to protect yourself that you enforce with love. So what's that look like? Hey, Mom, I love you. And we are going to meet with each other in these circumstances, no, I'm not going to give you money. No, I'm not going to allow you to live with me. Right boundaries that you set and you enforce with love. I love you, mom. And this is my boundary. And so that's why I say forgiveness is a process that that really focuses on your internal locus of control. She's the one who does the exercise, because she's the one who has to put down the luggage. And then to make sure she doesn't pick it up again, she sets up boundaries that she enforces with love as opposed to the way that we traditionally do it. Right. Whether it's Western society or Eastern society, you're never gonna X, Y, Z, I'm never going to let this person take advantage of me again, that is setting a boundary that you enforce with force or with charge with an emotional charge, which is by the way, also unhealthy. Does that make sense? does so in a work setting, right? If that if something were to happen, it's like you have that conversation, you do forgiveness, right? It happened when I was you know, pushed out of a job. My managers manager pushed me out of a job in my manager did. And as I was leaving the organization, the managers manager, right to levels above me said, you know, Vani, I wish there was something we could have done differently. Now, I had done forgiveness the night before, because I knew I was leaving. And I looked at him and I said, I wish you would have made different choices to because there are things you could have done differently that we would have had a different result. And he just kind of looked at me and goes, and I said and don't worry, I've done my forgiveness. So I bear no ill will. Right. It didn't change the fact that there was some crappy stuff going on. And I just said it and just in this tone of voice, right. I wish there were things that you had done differently too and I said I did my forgiveness work. So I'm good. Because Is there anything for me to do? And I was like, I don't know. I mean, that's up to you. My forgiveness doesn't require my interaction with you for forgiveness. So I wish you well, and I was able to walk out of the organization with my head held high instead of you know, oh my gosh, you guys are gonna see me or what? It was just No, I wish you well and this was a rotten situation. And by the way, I'm going to point it out to you in a normal tone of voice, because I've done my work.

Jeff Ma
So, you've mentioned kind of doing your forgiveness. Help helped me, helped me understand what I guess, forgiveness looks like maybe like the before and after, because I think it's, and this is speaking from experience from people in my life. And speaking from things that I've seen that I've often people who kind of feel like they get it will come out of situations and say things like, Oh, I've, I've made my peace I hold no ill will towards you, I for I have forgiven you. But you know, it's the actions or their, their their mindsets and behaviors kind of, say otherwise. Whereas it's almost like it's almost used more like a, almost a, like an excuse, or like a little bit of a, just a mechanism to get through that kind of space. And I say this from experience, I'm not saying that's the common, like the most common thing, but I use that because I want to understand better, what traits feelings or states do we get in that truly represent forgiveness, like when you reach a state of forgiveness, because in some way, some might say that, like, true forgiveness is, you know, complete, nothing, this is right or wrong. Just saying like, they might define it as true forgiveness is complete kind of reset, whereas this person can, you know, you can start over with the person and, and start from a blank slate and trust the open to trusting them again, others might say no, it's just not holding any, you know, bad feelings towards them. I feel like there's just so much gray area, and what can be defined as you have officially been forgiven. And I know it's not that simple. But I'm curious, your definition and your your your stance on that.

Unknown Speaker
So So the definition. So I would say that forgiveness and context is extremely important, right. So somebody who has served you cold tea versus somebody who has abused you, right? 2 different contexts. So I would say that, you know, let's take the context out of it. And let's just talk about it in terms of pure concept. Forgiveness is it's operating from a place of love. Which means there is a certain energy of frequency of a positive emotion versus a negative emotion. And, and I just want you to, like simplify it in terms of, you know, like, when we see someone we love, whether it's a dog, a cat, or a child or a parent, you know, there's a certain feeling that we have lightness and you know, that you want to be around them. And then a certain sadness that we feel like when we're at a funeral or something sad has happened or tragic has happened. And we, we feel heavy or negative. So forgiveness is about moving towards a higher frequency, a higher level of energy, which by the way, love is one of those highest levels. When we forgive, we are doing it from a heart centered perspective, we are doing it from a place that we say, and this is one of the foundational concepts of my practices, people are doing the best they can with the resources they have at the time. Make sense, right? People are doing the best they can with the resources they have at that time. So when you tend to do something sucky, right, and I'm just going to use this very simple example like the, you know, let's say tea, right? Because it's so innocuous. You serve me cold tea, there's a part of me that you know, will look at you and if you say, hey, Vani you know, my electric tea kettle was acting up and the water only gets lukewarm. You are doing the best you could with the resources you have at that time, I might look at you and go Jeff, my friend, can I buy you a new tea kettle? Right? That was the best you could do. I'm doing it from a heart centered perspective on a higher frequency of love. Now, if we jumped over to someone who has hurt you, right relationship, or otherwise, you're even in a in a corporate setting, right where it may be. Some somebody who is showing abusive behavior. This is where setting up the appropriate boundaries is so important. So you can't do one without the other. It means that you now take control for what is acceptable within your energy field. So for somebody who has hurt you, and let's just, you know, take an example of, you know, out in the school yard or, you know, with any form of the traditional abuse that we hear, it's making sure that you say I forgive them, because I'm not carrying that baggage around with me. Because for whatever reason, right, and this is where we hear traditional therapies say, Do you know their background? Perhaps they too, were abused, perhaps they too, were hurt, perhaps they were optimal, operating from a sub optimal position. That's where the forgiveness comes in. Because it's like saying, they were doing the best they could with the resources they had at the time, does not mean that you have permission to abuse me. I forgive you. Right. I do it from a heart centered place. And then I set up boundaries that protect myself that say, this will not happen. From today, moving forward. Make sense?

Jeff Ma
Yeah. And I think that's such an important way to tie it to the workplace, right? Because obviously, the workplace, many things can happen. All the extremes can happen. But oftentimes, workplace unforgiveness is centered around more smaller things, death by 1000 cuts

Vani Rao
absolutely right, all those little micro aggressions we talked about. Yes. I love the term, by the way, unforgiveness that y'all use, because it cracks me up. Right? It's like unforgiveness. Well, I guess that's the thing. Yeah, of course it is. Yeah.

Jeff Ma
Yeah. And I think that's, that's, to me, the key connection, when you said, you know, people are doing the best they can with the resources they have. And, and the way in the way we define that, essentially, is just understanding the difference between intent and impact, right? I think people's actions will have impacts and that's real. That's that what happens how you feel is a real thing, how it impacts you is a real thing. But I think You

Vani Rao
slapped me, there's still going to be a bruise, regardless. Right? But right, yeah,

Jeff Ma
even if there was a fly on my face, and you helped me out. But I think we too many people, my view is that too many people stopped, like right there at the impact. And they don't pause to consider the intent, or be open minded to other ways that intent might have been interpreted or placed in this space. And so it's, you know, some people summarize that as just misunderstandings. But it's often more complex than that, right. And it's nuanced in our mannerisms, or behaviors and all these things. It's just this miss this huge, convoluted thing that is much easier in a workplace, to smile and get through and, and ignore and move on and maintain the peace around each other than it is to address directly and say, hey, the way you talk to me makes me, you know, feel uncomfortable every time. And so, so it's all really interconnected. I love the way you framed forgiveness, because it really resonates with something that I think if people really applied to their thinking and their mindset, with whoever, whomever and whatever's going on, in their workplace, I think there's a lot to be gained. I feel there's a lot of introspection and moments of clarity that can be had with this way of thinking.

Vani Rao
Yeah, and if you do it, if you do it the way, you know, again, that the classical forgiveness, the way that it works best right to put down those black bags as the focus is entirely on you. Right? What can I do better? What can I do differently? How can I understand how can I communicate? It's, it's the right? To me, it's the right use of I. And then when you're looking for what do you do differently moving forward? That's when you talk about We, right? the blame is, you know, not blame, but the understanding is, who am I? What can I do better or differently? And then how do we move forward?

Jeff Ma
I love that more than I can express it. Yeah, it's 100%. Like, as you know, in the book, that is one of the main things that is missing, right? And like too much of it is, oh, we have culture problems. We have these problems. So let's go straight to the processes. Let's go straight to the rules that we set. And not enough time is spent on each individual personal mindset, each individual person's journey, have their own introspection, right and so to hear you just so succinctly say, It's all contained within you the solution and everything is there

Vani Rao
is by the way, so is the problem. It is because whenever somebody comes and talks to me, so, you know, I was I was counseling a college person and you know, she was like, Auntie, I want to tell you what's wrong with my roommate. And she proceeded to list a whole bunch of stuff that was wrong. And I was like, Oh, my goodness, that must be so hard. And I took each situation. And then I turned around, and I said, so what is your problem with yourself? And she just was like, what? And I was like, because whatever you're pointing outside is actually what's going on inside of you. And I said, so why don't we let that go? Because the problem is not your roommate. It's you. And of course, she, you know, she started crying. And she was like, Oh, my God, I didn't realize it. That's like, that's okay. That's why I'm Auntie and you're coming to me. Because we always look inside for the problem. And we look inside for the solution. So when you adjust you, everything outside of you looks different when you clean your windshield. Amazingly, the world outside looks clearer. But we don't go around, you know, trying to clean other people's windshield when ours is dirty, if that makes sense.

Jeff Ma
Makes perfect sense. Absolutely. So it sounds like you make a lot of people cry. This sounds Oh, yeah,

Vani Rao
I do. And that's release.

Jeff Ma
If, if our listeners are looking for a good cry, so how do you how how might they find you or reach you to continue this conversation or learn from you?

Unknown Speaker
So YVaniRao.com? So yeah, as part of my coaching practice, I mean, you know, all kidding aside, whenever we release negative emotion, we feel better. So for me, it's like when people let go of the stuff that holds them back, it makes me happy. So yeah, YVaaniRao.com. You know, whatever I can do in whatever setting, you know, for me, working with the whole person is what's most important, whether it's through career or relationship, or family, or their spirit or personal development, we are a single container, and that container deserves every opportunity to vibrate at the highest frequency.

Jeff Ma
I love it. Thank you so much today for this perspective, his journey, this conversation through forgiveness has given me a lot to think about as well. And so I'm excited to kind of like go practice some of these things with the unforgiveness that still exists in my life that we all have. But we all have a really Yeah. And I appreciate I just really appreciate your time today.

Vani Rao
Great. Thank you, Jeff. And one thing too, if it would be helpful. My teacher, Dr. Matt, James offers a seven minute like guided meditation on how to do forgiveness. And it's a free resource. If there's, you know, if anybody's interested in that, I don't know how we make it available. But it's a very quick way to just run through forgiveness and make it a part of your regular practice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaMcgtswmVA

Jeff Ma
Yeah, that sounds great. I think we'll be able to put that in the show notes. So thankfully, people are finding that the show notes as they listen. And that'll be a great resource. So appreciate cool.

Vani Rao
And you know what, thank you for letting me sit and talk about heart centered work, because you're right, this is something that we need to do more of.

Jeff Ma
Agreed 100%. So with that, thank you, Vani again, and thank you to our listeners. And we really appreciate you tuning in. I'll always pitch our book lovers business strategy still out there still killing it, it's great. Subscribe rate our podcast, tell a friend, leave us a review on the book on the podcast, we'd really appreciate it. And with that,

Vani Rao
if I can say, Jeff, as one of your fans, it is an extremely easy read. It is pragmatic. It is it is something that every business leader should read.

Jeff Ma
I really appreciate that endorsement. Yeah. We I liked that. You said, you're talking about how you know you'd like to work with the whole person. And I was like, that really resonates with me because like we wrote a business book that and you read it, it's maybe 15% talks about truly business, maybe like maybe less, it's more the story behind it. And that's so I'm with you,

Vani Rao
and and your vulnerabilities because your stories had been cracking up because I was like, Who gave them this kind of advice to be that vulnerable in a book that was gonna be, you know, rated by the Wall Street Journal. I mean, you know, that just some of the stories about how your mistakes formed the center of your work are just hilarious. And I'm glad you didn't listen to traditional pundits who would be like, no, no, please don't highlight your mistakes in every single chapter, which is kind of what y'all did.

Jeff Ma
Yeah, we we, we had very few stories of things going right?

Vani Rao
Yeah. So yes, that's what I'm saying is you got to read it because it really shows that being vulnerable is real, and it's strong.

Jeff Ma
I appreciate that. Thank you so much Vani and we will see everybody next week. We're signing off