Kunal Tulsani. Post-Exit Spiritual Growth: Finding New Purpose

Jan 11

Episode - 9

Seven years after stepping away from his highly successful business, Kunal Tulsiani has gained profound personal insights into purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. In this episode, he shares how these insights now direct and drive his post-exit journey. He also offers actionable advice for you and me to live a more meaningful life.

What We Discussed:

00:00:00: Introduction

00:00:03: Kunal's Insights to Purpose, Meaning and Fulfillment

00:01:03: Meeting with Kunal

00:01:15: Did Money Make You Happy?

00:01:23: Who Are You and What's Your Purpose?

00:01:38: Most Important Human Character Traits

00:02:10: How Do You Want to be remembered?

00:02:19: Choosing People to Surround Yourself With

00:02:41: Daily Routine

00:03:12: Business Life and Routine

00:04:04: Insights on the Unusual Regime and Business Journey

00:05:20: Desire for Business

00:06:21: Setting up an Ikea Assembly Business

00:07:55: Transition to Real Estate

00:09:16: Focus and Growth in Business

00:09:57: Challenges in Business Journey

00:13:28: Transition from Selfish to Unselfish to Selfless

00:17:14: Lessons from the Nightclub

00:18:35: Understandings from Vedanta Treatises and Applying them to Life

00:19:29: Insights on Self Development.

00:20:29: Discovery of philosophy

00:20:49: Perception of wealth and duty

00:21:16: Growing business with spirituality

00:23:00: Teaching philosophy

00:23:27: Organizing family office

00:24:21: Post-business plans

00:26:37: Finding Balance in Desire for Business and Self-Actualisation

00:27:52: Conflict Between Desire for Wealth and Spirituality

00:34:13: Discussion on spirituality

00:36:31: Analogies for understanding philosophy and spirituality

00:37:22: Philosophy and Self-Reflection

00:39:52: Stages of Spiritual Development

00:44:04: A Journey of Philosophy and Mentorship

00:47:10: Investing with Impact

00:50:37: Self Discovery and Purifying Intentions

00:55:31: Being Charitable and Self-Discipline

00:56:17: Discussion on the Philosophy of Intellect and Mind

01:03:05: Importance of Customer Focus for Business Success

01:07:21: Pursuing a Fulfilled Life

01:09:30: Balancing Giving and Self-Care

01:13:45: Defining Fulfillment and Meditation

01:14:37: Thoughts on Silent Retreats

01:15:58: Philosophy and Recommendations

01:16:56: Suggestions on Reading and Practicing

01:17:55: Conclusion and Thanks

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:00:00 - 00:00:03]
Root cause of any agitation. You have guaranteed it's going to be relating to yourself.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:00:03 - 00:00:23]
Kunal Tulsiani. Seven years after stepping away from his highly successful business Kunal has gained profound personal insights into purpose, meaning and fulfillment. In this episode, he shares how these insights now direct and drive his post exit journey. He also offers actionable advice for you and me to live a more meaningful life.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:00:23 - 00:00:56]
If you die with money in the bank, you've basically wasted life energy. Your happiness should not be dependent on anything outside of your control. You should be thinking, what can I do for you? Rather than what can I get from you? I see people going to charity auctions and they're putting their hand up 20,000 for this or 30,000 for this.
Have they checked if their drivers had dinner? Why does one person smokes a cigarette and absolutely loves it? Another person can't stand the smell of smoke. If the cigarette has happiness, why wouldn't it give happiness to both people? It's the same with everything in the world.
It's not the world that has happiness. It's actually how we relate to it.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:03 - 00:01:12]
I'm so happy to see you here today because you've been an inspiration for me for years, as you know. So I'm extremely happy. I can share some of your wisdom with my audience today.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:01:12 - 00:01:15]
Absolute pleasure being here. Thanks for the invitation.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:15 - 00:01:16]
Did money make you happy?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:01:16 - 00:01:16]
Yes.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:17 - 00:01:17]
In what way?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:01:18 - 00:01:22]
It gave me the ability to not think about it anymore.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:23 - 00:01:24]
Who are you?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:01:24 - 00:01:28]
Who am I? I am pure consciousness.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:28 - 00:01:31]
Beautiful. What's your purpose?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:01:31 - 00:01:35]
My purpose is to find out my true nature.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:36 - 00:01:36]
What is money?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:01:36 - 00:01:37]
Energy.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:38 - 00:01:43]
You're brilliant. What are the most important human character traits?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:01:43 - 00:02:09]
Most important human character traits? Unselfishness. Being grateful. And love. Unconditional love.
Because keeping your heart open is really important. And I think if you love conditionally, some things are going to open your heart. Some things are going to close your heart. Unconditional means keeping an open heart all the time. So I'd say these are the top three.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:02:10 - 00:02:11]
How do you want to be remembered?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:02:11 - 00:02:12]
By who?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:02:12 - 00:02:16]
Anyone. Whoever remembers you.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:02:17 - 00:02:19]
Somebody who brought them a little bit of peace.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:02:19 - 00:02:22]
How do you choose people you surround yourself with?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:02:22 - 00:02:30]
I look for higher values. So either people who have high values or are aspiring to higher values.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:02:30 - 00:02:33]
What would be the highest values?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:02:33 - 00:02:34]
Those top three.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:02:36 - 00:02:40]
Okay, fair enough. Kunal. What time do you wake up in the morning?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:02:41 - 00:02:45]
So my routine generally is about 4:45.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:02:45 - 00:02:46]
Why?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:02:47 - 00:03:12]
So when I was 22 years old, I started studying avidanta. It's basically the Vedas, the oldest philosophy we know about known to mankind. And they say a sathwick time is between four and 06:00 a.m. It's when your mind is most poised and calm and objective. So that's the time I like to study philosophy, and then I start my day.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:03:12 - 00:03:18]
But that's my routine sometimes, obviously, if I have had a late night out dinner.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:03:18 - 00:03:25]
You're a fun person. You go out. I know. So it doesn't seem to affect your social life that much.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:03:25 - 00:03:26]
No. Yeah, absolutely.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:03:27 - 00:03:28]
How does the rest of the day look for you?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:03:28 - 00:03:50]
I'll wake up, I'll study for an hour, shower, change, have my meetings. My most important meetings I'll have in the morning. Once I finish those, then I'll go to the gym and have my lunch, take a little afternoon nap, and then have my afternoon, which is I spend in my office.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:03:51 - 00:03:53]
So for how many years you've been doing this?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:03:53 - 00:03:58]
It's been about 18 years now. Yeah, it's coming up to 18 years.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:03:58 - 00:04:04]
What do you think this quite unusual regime gave you during those 18 years?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:04:04 - 00:05:20]
It's interesting because I think so I'd met this guru who basically said, move to India and study this philosophy full time. And I said, well, my desire for business is too much, so I can't do that in my early 20s. She said, okay, just do whatever you want. Drink, smoke, party, do whatever you want. Just make sure that you study between four and six.
So I said, okay, I can do that. But actually, when you wake up at that time, it means you have to sleep at a certain time. It means you're eating at a certain time. So, basically, first of all, it gave me discipline. And I know at about 09:00 p.m.
If I'm having a really interesting conversation, then I'll stay. But if it's not more valuable than my mornings, I'll be home in bed by 10:00 but, yes, I'd say discipline that time in the morning just gives me objectivity, right? So I take my mind out of the world. I contemplate on big theories. I guess it's like when you take a boat, you take it out of water and you have to clean, then put it back in.
That's what I'm doing in the morning. So I'm sort of resetting my priorities, resetting my goal. Yeah. And it gives me that throughout the day. I can carry that through the day.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:05:20 - 00:05:28]
So you mentioned your desire for business was too strong. Let's talk about that. Talk about your path in business.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:05:28 - 00:06:21]
So it probably starts with my parents. My dad, they came here from India 50 plus years ago with nothing. He started on Petico Lane market, an electronic stall, and then he grew that to one shop and then five shops and sort of retail chain. So that work ethic sort of came from them. I studied business management, I went to boarding school.
I came out, I studied business management at Westminster University. And during that I was doing a coursework on Ikea, and I saw that the amount of people that go to Ikea and think they know how to assemble the furniture, basically, they go on a Friday. By Tuesday, the kids have nowhere to know. The bunk beds are all over the floor and they just want to get someone to fix it. So I immediately hired some builders.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:06:21 - 00:07:55]
I put them on mopeds and I started an Ikea assembly business. I then had a good friend of mine whose father, he's a russian oligarch, he wanted some cupboards fitted in his office. So I went, we fitted those, and at the same point, at the same time, Ikea launched the same service as me, which is doing very well, by the way. So he said, why don't you do something with my son? And so we set up a company which would integrate audiovisual into smart homes, basically.
Unfortunately, my friend had a very bad car accident and he was over the drink drive limit and he got six and a half years in prison, which was crazy. I mean, Oxford graduate, like, super smart, really bright guy. And just one mistake and he was a piece of prison. So I was working from their office. So the father couldn't really speak English.
He kind of, kind of made me take over the obligations of his son, which was not. There was not a learning curve, it was a straight line because he didn't speak English. So sometimes the banks would come and they'd be talking to me in English and he translated and turn up. So this was sort of around 2005, 2006, and coming to 2007, it's too much because obviously he's used to having 500 plus staff and there was just me. So very difficult.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:07:55 - 00:09:15]
I left in 2007, going into 2008, and obviously it was a financial crisis hit. So thankfully, I sort of had my contacts and by that time I had some investors and I got into real estate. I actually had to get planning permission for a little extension. And when I got the planning permission, I realized, wow, just with a drawing and an application, you can make a huge amount of value creation with not very much investment. So that's what I did.
And we did police stations. We were buying met police stations because they have that area in the middle where the police car would have to drive in there are residential areas, so we'd buy those, get planning permission to convert them to houses, and then we'd sell it on and buy the next one. And so far, we've unlocked over a billion pounds worth of value in central London. Through police stations? Well, no, not through police stations.
We did 1 million sqft in Vauxhall, which was a 200 bedroom hotel, 279 apartment scheme. And then, for instance, then I had that exit. And I've been investing. I set up a family office because my parents got old, so I was sort of managing their assets and my own. And I've been investing in.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:09:16 - 00:09:51]
It's interesting because in the Gita he talks about in chapter three, it's about karma yoga. Karma yoga is about having an ideal outside of your self centered interest. So I've concentrated on impact investing. I don't believe in charity because I think charity is great, but every time they need to raise funds, they have to go with their begging bowl to try and raise money. And I feel that if you can set up a business which is impactful, which is evergreen, so it's funding itself and it's constantly giving back to society.
So I'm looking for those businesses.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:09:51 - 00:09:56]
Let's go back a little bit, and I want you to talk about that big building you did.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:09:57 - 00:10:54]
Sounds a lot easier than it was. I was again 28 years old, and it was an advertising site in Vauxhall. And I basically went for planning permission for these two towers. I did a joint venture with the landowner, so they put their land in because they weren't allowed to spend their money on speculative development because it's a pension fund. So I raised the money and we basically got planning permission.
And as we were going for that, the whole area was coming up. The american embassy came in and a lot of nine L's whole vasti power station now Apple, I don't know if they're the head offices there. So the whole area sort of came up at the same time. But we were the first ones to go in for an application on that new plan that the council had put out.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:10:55 - 00:10:56]
When you sold that project.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:10:57 - 00:10:57]
Yes.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:10:57 - 00:11:01]
How did you feel about it if you go back to that moment?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:11:02 - 00:11:44]
So there were quite dark days, so we had to appeal, so we were closed. And when I was looking for funding, everyone was like, canal people aren't even investing in developed buildings. That's 2012 financial crisis. Nobody believed in this pipe dream. So it was very difficult.
And again, I go back to my philosophy of reading in the morning and the Gita, which is basically a fight to war. And Krishna was advising one army, basically, on how to fight the war, a righteous war. And so I was taking my learnings from there and I was applying it to everything I was doing.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:11:44 - 00:11:52]
Give me an example. I want an illustration, like, what specific story from the Dante helped you in a specific business situation?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:11:52 - 00:13:08]
So, I mean, for example, it says when you meet someone, you should be thinking, what can I do for you? Rather than what can I get from you? So the attitude of what can I do for you? Because obviously I was young and I was in these big meetings. I was the youngest person at the table.
It was very much, well, what can I do for you? So when I'd meet the council, they'd be like, what do you guys want? What can we do for you? And then you're kind of on the same page as everyone. You're listening to them.
When I was meeting the landowner and I was like, what is it that I can do for you? What do you need? And they would tell me what they needed. So it was just finding it what everyone else needed. But the main thing is I wasn't getting paid because there was no money.
So it was years of me having to really put in effort without getting anything in return and not knowing if I was going to get anything in return. And that's what kept me going, was just like, okay, what's my obligation? 16,000 jobs are going to be created. It's homes. It's a landmark for the country.
So let me not think about myself, because if I thought about myself, I would have stopped it a long time ago. So. Well, I don't know. I'm not sure about this. So I'm just going to step back.
So it was, the whole thing really was what kept me going.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:13:08 - 00:13:27]
I find it absolutely fascinating because in your 20s, it's perfectly normal to be quite selfish. And you at that time, so early, were so not selfish already. So tell me about how you exited that project when it was over and you were free from it.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:13:28 - 00:16:29]
Yeah, I think the whole crux of philosophy, if you were told, but ask me, what is it? In a nutshell, it is going from selfish to unselfish to selfless, right? So I think if you understand the concept behind it, it will give you more of an idea of how I got to where I got to. So it's easier for you to solve your friends problems than it is your own, because when you're thinking of someone else, your mind is less agitated, you're more objective, you can think clearer, you can make better quality decisions. That's why the answer is in you.
You can use it for your friend, whereas for yourself, when you're thinking about yourself, your mind's really agitated. You can't think very clearly. So for me, it was like, well, the more unselfish I am, the more peace of mind I'm going to have. And that's why, obviously, to a limit. If you go too far, you start resenting.
It's a limit, but it's a slow 1%, sort of better every day. When I was thinking about my exit, it was not, again, not about what I'm going to get out of it or what's going to happen. And I think as you get to that point, it's like, okay, now you get a certain amount of responsibility. Now there's the response, okay, so if I, at the end of it, had my exit and then was like, okay, let me go and spend this money on myself. I know that's not going to bring me happiness.
I've seen enough people with money who aren't happy because that's my interest. I've asked them, and I can see they're always searching for the next thing. It's like chasing a mirage. So for me, it was to continue. My goal is self realization.
Right? If you look at Mazo's hierarchy of need, the very top is self actualization, reaching your full potential as a human being. So self development has always been my goal, and I know I'll never reach it, because self development. Self development, it's a process. It's a process, yeah.
It's a process that can always be developed, and you can always grow towards it. So all I wished was for that site to be sold at the time. So I had my exit and wanted to continue pursuing my spiritual goal because this was part of my journey. Everything has to be aligned. So karma yoga is a way of reaching the self through action, right?
So my business was my karma, and so I continued. So I got married in 2018. My wife was a student of Adanta. I met her at the Nashville in India, and we got married. She came to London.
She's a sound healer, Vedic sound healer. So I've just continued sticking to my principles. Thank God I have them, because there's so many opportunities where you can go off the rails. It's a lot of responsibility, it's a lot of money, and you need to have those values.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:16:29 - 00:16:45]
But it didn't happen on day one when you just started your business that you already had all this knowledge and all this spirituality. So if you go back to when you just started your business. What was the motivation for you?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:16:45 - 00:17:04]
Oh, to make my, the whole thing for my parents know, money. People don't respect you if you don't have. Don't you need the know? It was very had, I was living in central London. I had very wealthy friends.
It was all about just.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:17:04 - 00:17:14]
So tell me a little bit about that time, because I want you to help me explain to our audience how you developed over time into where you are today.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:17:14 - 00:18:35]
Yeah. So obviously I came out of boarding, had exposed, and moved to central London. So I hadn't had exposure to the nightclubs and to the, it was very sort of in a bubble. And when I came to central London and I met some very wealthy arab friends of mine who just wanted to party every day. They just want to go out.
And that was what life was about. It was about going to having nice things and girls and just having a great time, which I realized. I went to a nightclub. I had to get my credit card the next day because I'd left it behind. And I went and I walked in, I was like, this is just disgusting.
It just smells bad. If you ever go to a nightclub, the next day it's a flash in the pan. And I realized I was like, I want to spend time developing my day life, not my nightlife. There's no point being having the best table in the club, because the next day you wake up with a hangover and nothing really to show for it, apart from a long receipt out of your pocket. So I saw at that time that that wasn't bringing me happiness, and I was chasing something.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:18:35 - 00:18:38]
So when I read the Vedanta treaties, this amazing book.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:18:38 - 00:18:40]
And I did read it. Amazing.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:18:42 - 00:19:29]
It just talks about the self, and it talks about, why does one person smoke a cigarette and absolutely loves it? Another person can't stand the smell of smoke. If the cigarette has happiness, why wouldn't it give happiness to both people? So it's the same with everything in the world. It's not the world that has happiness.
It's actually how we relate to it. How do you catch your shadow? Put your hand on your head? It's all about self development. Even if you say life, you have you and you have the world.
We're constantly proving the world. But if we can improve ourselves a little bit, every experience becomes that much better. So by developing yourself, actually, you're developing every experience. And when I read this and I read this, and I was like, actually, that really resonates with me. It works.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:19:29 - 00:20:09]
And that's when I started sort of studying it deeper, and that's when my business started. Dealing with my friend in jail and dealing with his father and their responsibilities. That came to me very early. I was just applying it and my discipline and my perseverance and everything that I was studying. As I said, I was slowly getting better and better and better.
And everything was growing, growing with me. Everything was just falling into place. It was like when you wake up with nature, you're sort of up, and the birds start waking up and the sun starts rising, and you're in line with nature. You're flowing. I was in flow.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:20:09 - 00:20:15]
Despite all the challenges and visiting your friend in jail and all of it.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:20:15 - 00:20:24]
Yeah, it was all part of obligation. Like, what do I need to do for you? What do I need to do for him? What does he need? It was literally just so.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:20:24 - 00:20:28]
You were already thinking that way at that time, in your early 20s.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:20:29 - 00:20:49]
That's when I came across this. I came across a philosophy. I went to India. I was supposed to go to a wedding, and the groom broke his legs. I ended up going to Ananda in the Himalayas.
It was a spa. And there I met a teacher. And when I met the teacher, he gave me the book, and then I started studying. And then I had classes in London, and that was in my early 20s.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:20:49 - 00:21:07]
So when you first had this idea that you wanted to earn money and wanted to go into business, it was before you discovered Vedanta. Then you discovered Vedanta and you started thinking more, it's my duty. Right. And seeing your business through the values of Vedanta, is that correct?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:21:07 - 00:21:08]
That's exactly it, yeah.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:21:09 - 00:21:15]
Okay. But then you left the russian oligarchs. Oligarch. And you started your own property business.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:21:15 - 00:21:16]
Yes.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:21:16 - 00:21:24]
How did your spirituality grow together with your business at that time, when you were already your own man?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:21:24 - 00:22:41]
One of the concepts, or main concepts, is desires, right? So the more desires you have, the more agitated your mind is. And what we do is we keep picking up new desires. So I want to buy a house, and you get the house.
Now I need furniture, and now I need this and I need that. So there's a constant. We keep adding desires. And the idea is to say, well, you should reduce your desires as much as you can. Not stifle them, not be, not frustrate yourself, but just to a point where don't add new stuff.
Imagine you put all your desires in a bucket today and just slowly work on reducing what's in that bucket. Don't keep adding things to it. So for me, I had to think about that. Like, what are my core desires? What are the things which I'm going to work on?
See your vastana, your innate nature. So what is that? And everyone's born with a different age. Somebody might be a musician. Somebody might be born with a desire for speaking or for theatrical performance, whatever it might be.
Mine was for business. So I said, okay, let me focus on my core desire, which was business. And that's when I just put everything and focused it in one direction. And I think if you focus anything in one direction, it gets a lot of power. Light in one direction has a lot of power.
Wind in one direction has a lot of power.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:22:41 - 00:22:41]
Absolutely.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:22:41 - 00:22:48]
Water in one direction. So I just focused all my energy on emptying my bucket.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:22:49 - 00:22:56]
So you focused all your energy on your business. You achieved amazing success in it, and then you sold it.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:22:56 - 00:22:56]
Yes.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:22:57 - 00:23:00]
What were you thinking you wanted to do next? At that point?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:23:00 - 00:23:12]
At that time, I actually wanted to teach the philosophy. So what I'd learned what I had, because I believe the best way to learn is actually through teaching.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:23:12 - 00:23:12]
Teaching.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:23:13 - 00:23:27]
I think you retain 90% of what you teach and only 10% of what you read. So I like that. I like talking to people. I like being challenged on it, not only teaching, but just discussing. So that's what I wanted to do.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:23:27 - 00:24:09]
I wanted to become a philosopher. And so I realized that, okay, if I want to have free time to be able to do that, I need to get my finances in order. I had to organize myself, so I had to learn about wealth management. I joined Tiger 21. I was already a YPO member, and I needed to work out how I can organize my family office as such.
That will fuel, so I don't have to worry about it anymore, and I can really focus on giving, on continuing my journey to try and be more and more unselfish. Sometimes you go backwards. It's a challenge.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:24:10 - 00:24:21]
Yeah, I guess going back to Maslow Pyramid, you were basically focusing on building your foundation, your safety, and security, so you could focus on self actualization. Exactly. I absolutely get it.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:24:21 - 00:25:13]
Yeah. So that was my thing. And everyone says after your exit, don't do anything for a year. You make the most stupid mistakes. So I didn't, which was lucky for me, because by the time we had the final payment, it's 2018.
So I'm learning about equities, and I'm learning about. And then we had COVID, so I didn't do anything stupid, and I changed the name of the family office, impact assets. So I constantly think about, okay, what's impact. I want to be able to look back in ten years and not just have made money, but I want to be able to what is the difference I've made?
How many lives have I impacted? Because I think that's what for me now, even looking about my property business, when I drive past some of the buildings that have been built, I'm like, oh, wow, people are living there. You've created homes for people that's going to be there for, hopefully a very long time.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:25:13 - 00:25:21]
So in your impact investing, how do you balance pragmatism and spirituality?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:25:21 - 00:26:37]
Again, it's like math, right? If you've got your core values, you understand, okay, you know that I'm trying to do this for the benefit of other people. What's the benefit of others? But as I said, it shouldn't be charity. This money should come back and go to the next thing.
So it needs to be done really responsibly. And again, karma yoga, which, as it says chapter three of the Gita, this is all he's talking about, right? When you act, you have three types of yoga, right? You have karma yoga, which is action. You have bhakti, which is devotion, which is basically being grateful and having some sort of a thank, being grateful for whatever you've been given.
So today we're breathing, and we've got our blood pressures managed, and everything is what our blood systems are working. So actually, just having some devotion to something that's providing this to us. And Jnana yoga. Jnana yoga is the philosophy is the study of self development. So my karma is to work, and that's what I do.
So every situation I'm looking at, okay, how is this going to help people? And that's part of my way of getting to my goal.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:26:37 - 00:26:54]
When I first met you, you were actually at the crossroads. I remember it very well, because you were thinking, should I dedicate my life to philosophy, or should I do business at the same time? So it sounds like you found that balance and you found how to do both.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:26:54 - 00:27:52]
Yeah. So, as I said, it was sort of let the family office run itself, and they give me time to teach and have philosophical discussions, but I realized I'm not using that's not my true nature. So my nature for business is still there. So even though I've had my exit, I still have.
I'm in my nature for business. I'm saying, how can I apply that nature? And I see it as one road. I don't see them as two roads. I see it as one road.
And going down that road business. I can help founders. I sit on the board of the companies and I give valuable insights. I believe from my perspective, and have discussions. I mean, like discussions we have and discussions with people who talking about philanthropy and or talking about charity.
So it's all part of the same thing.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:27:52 - 00:28:00]
Do you think there is a conflict between a desire to earn money and be successful in materialistic terms and being spiritual?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:28:00 - 00:28:44]
I believe in order to give, you need to be full. Right. If I feel empty, I need to take. If I feel full, I can give. So there's an imaginary void of emptiness, right?
So you have this feeling that, oh, I'm not full, I'm empty. Which is what the philosophy is. It's telling you. It's explaining to your true nature, which is you are full. It's an imaginary void.
So that feeling of, I need to take, I need to do this, I need all these things. There should come a point, hopefully, where you feel full, which is why I say to people who's rich and who's poor, what's your definition of rich? Someone who's rich. It's a question to you.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:28:44 - 00:29:13]
My definition of rich? Well, it depends, I guess, if you are specifically asking about finances, it's very different from more philosophical definition. From philosophical definition, it means that it's somebody who actually really appreciates everything that life gives. I think that's the most important thing you would say, feeling gratitude for what this life gives us, and then we feel rich. It's a feeling.
It's objective.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:29:13 - 00:29:16]
And from a financial perspective?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:29:16 - 00:29:39]
Well, for me, it's not having to worry about money too much. It's what you said before, when actually your finances are set enough for you to feel secure enough to be free to pursue what you really want to do, which is self actualization, in whatever form that particular person can decide to do it.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:29:39 - 00:30:18]
Which is absolutely spot on. But I'd say that if your desires are within your level of income, you're rich. If your desires are outside of your level of income, you're poor. So it's not about wealth management, it's about desire management. So it's about, okay, what is it that you desire?
What is it that you want? Make sure it's clear, right? Say, okay, I'm going to get to 100 million. After that, I don't need to make anymore. Get to 100, but don't get to 100, and move it to 200, and then move it to 300.
Because again, you're just chasing after something, a mirage.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:30:18 - 00:30:22]
Why do you think people get stuck in this chase in a mirage?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:30:22 - 00:31:18]
Because they believe it's there, right? What's a mirage? When. When you're thirsty in the desert and you see water, you get there and you put so much effort to get there, and now it's moved. So what are you going to do?
You're going to put more effort to get to the next one and it's moved and you just keep going until you realize actually it's not there. So it's about when do you understand that it's not there? And then when you can start looking internally to say, okay, what is it that I actually desire? Because you can give your people say, oh, I'm making my money. What are you doing it for?
I'm making it for my children. But you're not spending any time with your children. You're working all the time. So what are you going to do? You're going to leave them with loads of money and no values, right?
But maybe if you spent time with them more time, you can leave a little less money, but you leave them with values so they know how to manage that money. It's a little lopsided, and I think it's just that it's greed, it's cravings, and that's what causes a lot of agitation and ultimately leads to people being quite unhappy.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:31:19 - 00:31:47]
So let's do a quick case study. Two days ago, I talked to a friend of mine who sold his business for a large amount of money. And now he says, I do want to start another business because I don't think I have actually proved myself because I think it was mostly due to luck that I got successful the first time around. So I'm really driven to start a new business as soon as possible so I can prove myself. What do you tell that friend of mine?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:31:47 - 00:32:00]
Well, that's his desire, right? If he believes that, there's nothing you can say to him that's going to change his mind, right? That's his belief. And it's not for me to even say that he's right or wrong in that.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:32:00 - 00:32:08]
Do you think when he gets there and has another very successful business, do you think he'll feel satisfied?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:32:08 - 00:32:36]
Well, the question is, does he feel satisfied every day? Is it like when I get there, then I'll be happy? Or is it, I'm really happy and satisfied, and now I'm just going to do something that I love, which is building businesses. So that's the question. Ask him.
If you're saying, well, I'm unhappy, but if I start another business and I'm going to be ten years. And when I sell that one, I'm going to be happy. Then. Then I'd ask him to question. I'd question that again.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:32:36 - 00:32:53]
So it basically boils down to where that desire to do business comes from. Is it your nature and you want to self actualize through doing business? Or is it because you think that happiness happens in the future once you achieve.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:32:53 - 00:33:00]
Yeah. Are you doing it from a place of lack? Right? Or are you doing it, do you have a scarcity mentality or an abundance mentality?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:33:00 - 00:33:03]
Let's talk about it for a second. How do you understand that?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:33:03 - 00:33:11]
Well, that's what, back to the point of if you feel that you're a little empty and you think this is going to fill you, it's not. Right?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:33:11 - 00:33:11]
Yeah.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:33:11 - 00:34:13]
It just doesn't. Nothing external. Again, it's a shadow, right. There's nothing external that's going to fill you. It's an internal, it's understanding your true nature.
If everything is one, you're part of that oneness. It's like trying to explain to the, imagine a drop in the ocean, right? You're trying to explain to the drop, just dissolve yourself and you'll become the ocean. A drop saying, no, I'm an individual, right? This is me.
This is my. No, it's like explaining to that drop, just release your sense of individuality and you will become part of the totality because you are the ocean. But he believes he's a drop. And that is the process of education. Just relax.
Just become one with everything. And that's your true nature, right. So if you don't understand that, then you will keep searching and searching and searching externally, not knowing who you really are.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:34:13 - 00:34:21]
Why do you think so many post exit entrepreneurs are not open to talk about spirituality?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:34:21 - 00:35:41]
People talk about spirituality. People discuss philosophy. You ask them, do you believe in God? Do you not believe in God? If they don't believe in God, they've thought about it and they've decided they don't believe in God.
If they do believe in God, and maybe it's their religion. I think there's a big difference between religion and spirituality. I think all the religions have taken this philosophy and given out at different times to different groups of people. If you look at spirituality, and I think it's quite abstract. So it's about taking people from where they are.
It's like if I said to you, if you said to me, okay, where's the library? I'm looking for the library. And I said, it's next to the post office say, well, where's the post office? If you just go to the park, take a right. But how do I get to the park?
It's like if you leave your house, take a left, you're going to get to the park. Once I tell you how to get to the park, you'll know how to get to the post office, you'll know how to get to the. And you will know how to ultimately get to the library. But if I'm just talking abstract, it's not logical, it doesn't make sense. So it's about saying, okay, where are you now?
And slowly going step by step towards your true nature. And I think if you start talking too abstract about things, people just don't. They're just not interested in it. I think it loses its practical. Its practicality.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:35:41 - 00:36:30]
The reason I ask you that question is because of that drop versus ocean that you discussed before. Because when you were talking about it, I immediately thought, okay, that drop is holding on to its identity because it wants to have control over it and feel that this is the little world I control. And then I immediately thought, okay, isn't it very common for entrepreneurs to be control freaks? So once we are building that business being control freaks, we satisfy that desire for control, but then the business is gone and we don't have it anymore. We still want to control ourselves.
And I find that lots of people are very uncomfortable giving up that idea of control to grow spiritually.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:36:31 - 00:36:55]
It's interesting, I think that if you talk to somebody, for example, if we say, what's everyone's calling, true calling, so we won't say happiness, because happiness is maybe a fleeting emotion. But if you take a four foot spring, reduce it down to 1ft. What's happening to your hand? Top hand. If I've taken four foot spring, what's happening to your hand?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:36:55 - 00:36:56]
Well, it's being pushed up.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:36:56 - 00:36:57]
Pressure, right?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:36:57 - 00:36:57]
Yeah.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:36:57 - 00:37:00]
Reduce it. Increase it to 2ft. What's happening?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:37:00 - 00:37:01]
Less pressure.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:37:01 - 00:37:04]
Less 3ft. Even less 4ft.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:37:04 - 00:37:05]
Almost none.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:37:05 - 00:37:22]
None, right? Because this is natural state. So I believe that everybody is trying to get back to a natural state, a true nature. Every river is leading to the ocean, right? Everybody is trying to get back to that place.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:37:22 - 00:39:52]
So they may say, I'm not interested in spirituality, but what are they interested? They're interested in getting back to the ocean. It's just about the road that they need to take to get there. It may be winding, it may go backwards, upwards, left, right. But ultimately it's going to lead to the ocean.
So if you can try and just direct them. So maybe go in this direction a little bit. A little bit of a push. And maybe I'm totally wrong, right? All the philosophies could be totally wrong, and everyone has their own individuality.
But if they were to ask me which. What I've done, and I can only tell you as far as I've got, is I can just say, well, maybe go in this direction, look towards this direction, which is, look, have more peace of mind. At least just try and be a little more unselfish. If you take a smoker again, right? A smoker.
He's sitting in his meeting. Cigarettes, he's sinking cigarettes, cigarette, cigarette. The mind is. Goes outside, he takes a drag. He's in bliss.
It might be for a second or two, but he's in bliss. So what's happened? What's the science behind that? So he had a desire for a cigarette, created an agitation. Agitation got really bad, and then he had a cigarette.
It was association of the agitation created that feeling of bliss, right? So we understand that desire creates agitation, and association of that desire creates happiness. So if we can, to the extent we can reduce our level of desire, we'll increase. It's inversely proportionate. We'll increase our level of peace of mind and more objectivity.
We can make better quality decisions. So if they can understand that, they say, okay, well, what do I really, really want? What is that guy, for example, really looking for? The entrepreneur who said it was just luck? What is it exactly that he's looking for, then he wants to prove it to himself.
It's just understanding what is that core desire and making sure that he can satisfy that, to reduce his level of mental agitation and have more peace of mind. And then hopefully get into a meditative state. Everything you're doing, doing calm and objective. And it's like when you pour water, if you're pouring water from a jug, if your hand is shaking, the water goes everywhere, right? But if your hand is still, you can pour it perfectly into the cup.
So it's the same with your mind, right? If your mind is calm, all your actions come out perfectly.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:39:52 - 00:40:42]
Can we talk about stages of spiritual development? I remember very well the conversation you and I had when I mentioned that having children pushed me very much out of my selfishness. And I suggested at that time that I felt that I was quite spiritually developed, thanks to my children, because I was so unselfish as a mother, sacrificing myself every day to my three children. And your reaction at the time really surprised me, because you basically said, oh, that's actually a very low level of spiritual development. And we argued a little bit.
And this is exactly when you gave me that book, Vedanta, which, of course, describes different levels of spiritual growth very well, but I'd love you to talk about it.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:40:42 - 00:40:51]
So, I mean, would you have the same attitude if they weren't your kids? The same attitude if it's someone else's child? Would you do the same thing for someone else's child?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:40:52 - 00:40:52]
No.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:40:52 - 00:43:17]
Right. So it's the mindness in it, right? And it's that mindness, which is the selfishness. It's me, my family, my kids, my house, my business. That's within your sphere.
The idea is doing something outside of yourself, outside of your self centered interest. So things that don't have the may attached to it, holding the door open for somebody, letting someone go in traffic, those small things that you can do, which has no benefit to you whatsoever. That's why I think if you're doing something for yourself or you're doing something for your child, it's really you're doing it for yourself. It's just a version of you. And as you said to me, it's basically, I care for them more than I care for myself.
So it's just a version of you personified in another form. So obviously it's great, but your home should be the center of your affection, not the boundary. So start with yourself. Make sure you're okay, make sure your family are okay. And then how do we expand that?
How do we look at the community? How do we look at the country? How do we look at civilization? How do we look at all living beings? How do we keep evolving our eccentric circles?
That's why I said that to you at the time. So in the Gita, he talks about different levels of charity. It's great. Charity is great. Even the lowest level is better than no charity.
But the lowest form is economic. Right? So writing a check. So I can write a check to a charity. Yes.
It hurts for five minutes. It's okay then. A little higher than that is physical. So I could help you move house. If I come and help you actually physically move, that's higher.
Higher than that is emotional. So being there for someone, giving them emotional support. Higher than emotional is intellectual. So helping, they say, teach a man to fish. So actually applying yourself intellectually.
But he says the highest actually is self development. Why? So if you develop yourself, every situation you come into, every decision you make is going to be for the betterment of other people. So that's sort of the ladder of charity.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:43:17 - 00:43:25]
So it's okay to act in self interest because that benefits the rest of us.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:43:25 - 00:44:00]
It's about getting self knowledge, right? So self development. If I'm strong physically, then other people, I'm not a burden on other people, right? They tell you when you get on the aeroplane, put your mask on first before, even for the children, it's important. You have to make sure you're okay and you feel full and then you can give and you can serve.
So that's why it's important to understand your true nature, have these values, learn, understand yourself, have a correct way of thinking, and then for the benefit of.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:44:00 - 00:44:03]
Others, ultimately beautifully explained.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:44:03 - 00:44:04]
Thanks.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:44:04 - 00:44:14]
So let's go back to your life. So you sold your business, you had this idea that you really wanted to teach philosophy. So how did you go about it?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:44:14 - 00:46:36]
As I said, it was teach it. Then I realized, well, I'll mentor. So I think talking to people who are quite old already are quite set in their ways. So I said, let me look at the next generation and let me have these discussions with them and have it more of a discussion. So I started mentoring the Yng, which is the kids of YPO's.
But I believe that actually if you can change the mind of a CEO, if a CEO has a value of unselfishness, that will filter down to his key management, that will go down into the business, those people will go home, talk to their spouses, teach their kids those values, and hopefully that kid will go and share with his friend on the playground. Right. So you can have maximum, I believe maximum impact is the people at the top. So that was my journey. So I've been as like conversations that you and I have had or anyone who's interested in self development or looking for some sort of direction, that's how I was doing it in one on one discussions, as I said, by investing in businesses I've invested in.
We have one of the largest security training provider companies in the UK. Get licensed. The founder came to me and said, look, I want to create an app. What's the app going to do? So they get a license, right?
Then they want to find jobs. They come for jobs. They don't come for just a license. So the app basically was to educate them. Educate a potential security guard.
He does his course, puts his license number in and then there's lots of jobs and his CV gets sent automatically. So I've taken somebody basically who doesn't have a license, give them a license, give them a job and now they're protecting society. Great. And that can just keep evolving. So those discussions, because I think now the church has kind of gone.
People used to go to Sunday school and they'd go to church on Sundays, and that's kind of been pushed aside. So where are people getting their values from today? From businesses. So what are your goals? What's your mission when you're a CEO?
But new, these millennials or even Gen Z, they're like, so what's the purpose of this business? Trying to get the values from the company. So I think if you can infuse these higher values in these companies, you're going to hopefully get the maximum results.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:46:36 - 00:46:48]
When you look at an investment. And I understand that you want impact to be part of your decision, but what takes priority, whether it's a good business or whether it's really impactful.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:46:48 - 00:47:10]
So it's charity, ultimately it's charity. But as I said, it needs to be evergreen. So it needs to be doing well to have maximum impact. So it needs to be profitable because that profit gets reinvested again in the business. As you know, today, private equity, they just keep reinvesting the money and growing and growing and having more and more and more impact.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:47:10 - 00:48:28]
So it has to be financially viable because that's a good business. And a good business is going to have maximum impact, in my opinion. I think they both go together. I think they both go together. As I was explaining to you earlier, there's a company and now we're looking to invest in ignite.
They're giving a light bulb and a solar panel to houses in Africa. And the World bank is funding it because you don't have to pay for a connection here. We don't pay for a connection. We pay for usage. It's great.
2 million homes have already been affected across Africa. It's great for carbon emissions, right? And the kids, they're working during the day, but they can go and study in the evening under light and they have a charging port. So next we'll be giving Internet, and then hopefully through the advancements of AI, we're going to be able to educate any child in any country in their language. So that's a great business.
It's doing great. It's infrastructure, it's doing very well. It's profitable, it's growing. That's the kind of thing which I'm interested rather than investing in the fossil fuels, just putting my money in equities. And it happens to be in tobacco companies or in companies which don't really fully align with where is it going to be in ten years?
Is it sustainable?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:48:28 - 00:48:38]
So on a personal, selfish level, what does it give you? Knowing that you are investing your money with impact.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:48:38 - 00:48:54]
What does it give me? So, as I said, for me, peace of mind is really important. So I need to think about. Not really what it's giving me.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:48:54 - 00:48:56]
The question for a reason. I want to challenge you.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:48:56 - 00:49:45]
Yeah. No, please. It's not what I'm getting out of it, it's what can I do for others? What can we do? So it's constantly thinking about, what's this going to do for that child in Africa?
What can he get out of this? How's it going to work? I thinking about other people. If I help ten people, if I'm in trouble, one of those people hopefully will come and come and help me. And actually it was interesting.
So I was at London Business School and the professor Nero, lovely negotiation professor, he was teaching me about the law of reciprocity. So it's a negotiation tactic, actually. You should be the one to pay the bill first, because then the other person feels that they owe you something, or you should be the one to give first. And I was like, that's really interesting. The only problem is that obviously you're expecting something in return.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:49:44 - 00:49:45]
Intention is not pure.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:49:46 - 00:50:18]
Intention is not pure. Not only, you know, your intention, right. But ultimately I'm going to be agitated, thinking, God, I paid for that person and then I'm not getting anything out of it. So I'm eating sin, I'm creating more agitation for myself. And anytime I do start getting agitated, I need to look at where the root cause of it.
Root cause of any agitation, you have guaranteed it's going to be relating to yourself, some way it comes back to you. So, yeah, I try to make sure my intention is as pure as possible.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:50:19 - 00:50:20]
What keeps you up at night?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:50:20 - 00:50:36]
I sleep very well. When you wake up early, trust me, you just crash when you get to bed. What keeps me up at night? I'd say what my concern is, am I doing enough? Right.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:50:37 - 00:52:31]
Obviously, I'm not at all close to being close to my goal of reaching that ultimate. So there is definitely going to be selfishness. There's definitely mental agitation. For me, it's a constant process of trying to apply these values and have a higher ideal or work towards it. Am I doing enough?
Could I do more? Is it my ego that's stopping me? These are challenges. I see so many people also, spiritual people, like you said people, are they not interested in spirituality? But I think so many people are so lost.
It's so lost. I was talking to someone, they're like, we shouldn't have any possessions. If you're spiritual, how come you have a nice car and you have a nice house and you have all these things? It's giving up the attachment to these things. It's not giving up the things.
You can have everything, just don't be attached to it. Why wouldn't you get a scratch on a higher car? It's okay if you get a scratch on your car. It's like someone scratched your heart. So it's about having the same attitude towards your personal possessions as you would things which aren't yours.
Therefore, if you lose it, it's okay. At what level? What would it affect you? If you lose your pen, it's not really going to affect you. But if you lose your watch, you're going to call and you're going to find out, okay, where is it?
If your house burns down, if something happens to your child, at what level do you get affected? Where's your level of attachment? And just pushing that out slowly to be as unattached as possible. I mean, King Janaka was a king and he was a saint. This knowledge, actually, they're called rajarishis kings that were saints.
The knowledge was given to kings because they had so much to manage and so much to look after, and they had to be objective. So I think, for example, having possessions have everything. Just don't make it your identity. Don't be too attached to it.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:52:31 - 00:52:37]
For someone who is not familiar with the Dante or Vedic scriptures or any of these teachings, where do they start?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:52:37 - 00:54:07]
Good question. It's a good question. It's about self discovery, right? So it's about being a witness, right? Just start by understanding what your thoughts are.
What are my thoughts? What are my actions? What are my intentions? Only you know your intention, as I said. So what's my intention?
Is my intention. Do I believe that I still need more understanding what it is that I need, and writing that down so you don't keep extending that list, doesn't keep growing, and just understand what are those things that I need, and just first satisfy those things so that now your intention can be pure. Your intention needs to be service orientated, like a tree. A tree stands there and it just gives all day. It's just giving us oxygen all day.
It's intention. We don't know what's intention, but its actions seem pretty pure for us. It's self discovery. So there is so much out there, right? There's Buddhism, there's different religions, they're all saying the same thing.
There's one universal truth, and it's just starting to try and understand that. So any form of self discovery, any form of self development, self discipline, even if you're not exercising, exercise, what's my intention of exercising? Try and just purify your intention.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:54:07 - 00:54:08]
And how do you do that?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:54:08 - 00:54:46]
How do you purify your intention? It's a process of belief, right? What are my current beliefs? Understanding, what are your current beliefs? What is it that if you're saying, okay, well, I just want to get for myself, but I'm not happy.
Kunal Tulsiani: [00:54:26 - 00:54:42]
If someone is happy already and they're peaceful and everything's going well, great. But if I take things away from you, are you still going to be happy? Like you have everything now? Now, if I take your wealth away from you, are you going to be happy? So slowly, understanding, if I start, what are you dependent on?
Your happiness should not be dependent on anything outside of your control. Okay?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:54:47 - 00:54:47]
It's a good start.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:54:47 - 00:55:24]
You said founders like to be in control, okay? Your happiness shouldn't be dependent on anything outside of your control. So start to understand, what is it? What are those things I'm placing myself in? All these different things.
Start to pull it back in. So people say, meditate. Meditation, for me, I think, is really the last stage. I think when your mind is calm enough, you sort of live in a meditative state anyway. So just understanding what are your agitations, trying to catalog them, trying to understand what your intention is, and just try and make it as unselfish as you possibly can on a daily basis.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:55:24 - 00:55:31]
So the less selfish we are, the less stressful we are.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:55:31 - 00:56:17]
The less we think about ourselves, the less we think about ourselves, the more peace of mind we have is what's worked for me. And if I feel full myself, then I'm able to start inquiring how other people are doing. You know, just taking time, being charitable. It's not giving away, it's having a charitable disposition. Like, how can I be a bit more charitable today?
Can I ask my staff member, are they okay? Can I smile at somebody? What are the things that I can do within my capacity today to try and be as unselfish as possible? And then every day, it's just every day a slow process and you start enjoying it. And I think discipline is really important.

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:56:17 - 00:57:54]
I think self discipline, there's the idea of it. So again, in the philosophy, it talks about the intellect, right? You have the mind, which is the seed of your emotions, your feelings, and then you have your intellect, which is your ability to think, decide, judge. And the intellect controls the mind, right? It's like the parent, if you have a kid that's running around the house and has no control, he's going to make a mess of everything.
So your thinking capacity needs to be strengthened so it can control your mind. It's the same way. Like a diabetic knows he shouldn't eat sweets. The mind says, I want the sweet. The intellect says, no, it's not for you.
So if the intellect is weak, you'll get the sweet. My dad's diabetic. I have to hide. I'm hiding everything in there, around the house from him. So if the intellect is weak, your mind is allowed to sort of go.
And the mind inherently is quite selfish. If it wasn't, we wouldn't need any of these scriptures, right? We'd all be self realized. There's about developing your thinking capacity, your intellectual capacity, which is why you need self knowledge, understanding, and developing thinking. Having these discussions, reading, developing the intellect.
And as you develop your intellect, as it gets stronger, it's able to control the mind and give the mind direction. And that's what the mind wants. It wants direction. So I would say start to read philosophy. Anything that resonates with you, that is of higher value.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:57:54 - 00:57:55]
Meaning?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:57:55 - 00:59:33]
Meaning like higher value, any higher value. I think in chapter twelve of the Gita he talks about, it's a book of values, even self development books. Anything that resonates with you that can, you just need one concept. You just take any one concept and you work with that, and you get really good at that. I don't know if you've seen those apparatus in science, they're all different shakes, and you pour the water in one, but it always finds water, finds the same level.
So it doesn't matter which route you choose, it will develop you, and you'll have those higher values, and then it's easier to make decisions. Say, well, okay, when I look at a situation, if I'm thinking about the benefit to humanity rather than myself, my decision might be very different. So I would say any form of self development is the starting point, and ultimately the Upanishads and the Vedas, and that is the highest form of self knowledge. It was written before anyone, even 10,000 years, I think it is. It is the rarest, oldest form.
And Socrates and Plato and all these other philosophers have come, and it's all values, right? So I would say start there, and then you'll read more things, and you'll be things that resonate with you and you'll slowly just grow. And it's a little bit difficult in the beginning because the mind is the mind, so don't give up.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:59:33 - 00:59:40]
So in my experience, every post exit founder ends up asking themselves, so what's my purpose now?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:59:40 - 00:59:40]
Yeah.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:59:40 - 00:59:46]
How would you guide these people towards their purpose based on what you've learned?

Kunal Tulsiani: [00:59:46 - 01:00:40]
As I said to you, I think everyone's purpose, which is what Maslow said as well, is to reach your highest potential as a human being, which is understanding your true nature. That's where we're all going. So you will know if you're agitated and your mind is super agitated, then you're going in the wrong direction. If your mind is calmer and you've made a decision and it's not in the action, it's in the reaction. If you do something, if that thing brings agitation to you, then that action was not a correct action.
If you've done an action and it brings you peace, then that is the correct action. So it's really in the reaction when you do something, you're like, I regret it. Any regrets that you have, those regrets are a reaction. So that action wasn't correct. So now it starts taking action slowly, which is going to make you feel better, make the other person feel better.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:00:40 - 01:00:45]
How do you know before you take an action that you wouldn't regret it?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:00:45 - 01:03:05]
Because you check your intention. Okay, is my intention to help you or is my intention to help myself? Am I here to help you? Am I here to help myself? If I'm here to help myself, I'm going to be thinking, did it go well?
Do people like me? If I'm thinking I'm here to help you or to help the audience or anyone listening, I can leave here and I shouldn't even think twice about it. Peace of mind. So I'll know in the reaction. And it's a great game, right?
Life becomes a great game. I read that book, die with zero. I don't know if you know Bill Perkins, die with zero is super interesting because it's like, okay, why are you making more money? What's the purpose of you making more money? If you die with money in the bank, you've basically wasted life energy.
He gives a very good analogy. How much you want to leave for your kids? Put that aside. How much you want to leave for charity, you might as well and give it to them now, because the compound effect over the next 50, 60 years is going to be huge. And how much you have for yourself, right?
And that money spend it in your lifetime, divide it by the amount of years you have and spend it in your lifetime. What that does is say, I give myself 1000 pounds a week to spend on myself. I've spent 800, I've still got 200 left. Maybe I can give a little bit to somebody. Maybe I can tip a little bit extra.
Maybe I can help. So I've changed my mind. My mind from being. I need more to how do I give it away? So from a scarcity mentality to an abundance mentality, because the truth is, you are full.
You have everything. You've been given everything, even your breath, right? We're given all of this. We don't know where it came from. So should we not be try and give back, put our shoulder to the wheel a little bit.
And it's not about what I'm doing. I'm going to give charity or I'm going to do this. It's like, well, no, if I'm not even here, nothing's going to change, right? But how do I put my shoulder to the wheel? And how can I help?
And how can I serve? In Hinduism, it's called know sava service. Have a life of savor. Life of service. And if you look at all of the religions, Jesus Christ, what's the cross?
Right? What's a symbol of sacrifice? He sacrificed his life for others. All of about. It's all about service.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:03:05 - 01:03:22]
Yeah, it's interesting. There's quite a lot of research on how customer focused, customer centric business actually win eventually. So you can say that this confirms the idea that when we serve others also, we get more back.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:03:23 - 01:04:25]
Even in business school, that was all the lectures that I had. It does confirm that this phenomenon works ultimately. It works. Even listening to people, that's service. Right?
So if I'm sitting and you're talking, instead of trying to keep pushing my opinion on you, listening, just being there for somebody is service. And by listening to you, I understand what it is that you actually need, and then I can give you what you need. Rather than even in meetings I used to have, I'd say, okay, well, what can I do for this person? So I'm listening to them. I'm understanding one of my investors, I ended up having to help her out with her family issues.
It was not even about the investment. It was, she was struggling in different areas of her life, and I was able to help with her family members and the investment. It was nothing. It was easy. But you're actually giving them what they need at that particular time, and that's service.
And that's being kind and that's higher value.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:04:26 - 01:04:31]
So you've spent 18 years studying philosophy. At least 2 hours a day, I'd.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:04:31 - 01:04:32]
Say an hour a day.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:04:32 - 01:04:33]
An hour a day?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:04:33 - 01:04:34]
An hour a day.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:04:34 - 01:04:38]
That's long enough. You're way ahead of me, that's for sure.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:04:38 - 01:04:40]
But I practice, I'm practicing it all day, trying to practice it.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:04:40 - 01:04:54]
That was actually my question. So how do you think about your whole Life between studying theory and practicing it? How do you incorporate it in your lifestyle?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:04:54 - 01:05:26]
That's the good thing about this, right? Is you can practice it all the time. It's a game that you can play all the time. And it's a really fun, interesting game. Just helping people a little bit here and there, whatever, whoever they might be.
Everyone is struggling. This life is struggle for everybody, right? Even you say founders have made everything who people are looking up to as, wow, you must be amazing. They're struggling with what's my purpose, what's in it. Everyone is struggling.
So you have every opportunity to practice the philosophy.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:05:26 - 01:05:34]
And as long as your intention is to help others, as opposed to help yourself, you will have less stress in your life.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:05:34 - 01:05:41]
Yeah, you'll have less mental agitation, which is a form of stress. I mean, I don't think stress is necessarily a bad thing.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:05:42 - 01:05:43]
Agitation?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:05:43 - 01:06:15]
Yeah, I think agitation. Confusion, mental agitation. Because you think, what do I do next? What's my purpose? It's me.
You're thinking about yourself all the time. Just try and get out of your head. Try and like. And it's just easy to just ask those people and you'll find everybody needs help in some way or the other. Maybe not everybody and maybe not I'm the wrong person, maybe not be the right person for them to help them, but ultimately, by investigating that it's charity.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:06:15 - 01:06:21]
How do you make sure you don't overspend your emotional energy or your energy?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:06:21 - 01:06:24]
Overspend? You mean be too generous or too.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:06:24 - 01:06:27]
That you have nothing left to give?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:06:27 - 01:06:32]
Well, as I said, if you're full, you're eternal, right? As in you've got eternal energy.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:06:32 - 01:06:46]
Whereas make sure you're full because there is so much discussion out there about self care and the importance of self care and the importance of focusing on yourself, to give yourself whatever it is you need to give. How do you think about it again?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:06:46 - 01:07:19]
It's the intention behind it, right? It's okay. I'm going to go to the gym. What am I going to the gym for? I'm either going because I want to look good.
I want people to be attracted to me. I want to get, I want something from. Or I could be going to the gym saying, you know what, let me not be a burden on people when I'm old, having to be carried here and there on the medical system, or let me keep myself fit so I can be there for my children. I can be there to help people. I'm physically more able.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:07:21 - 01:08:40]
Even when I go to, when I'm at work, it's like, okay, this business, what's it for? Ultimately, you need to be in a good place. You need to feel full. And if you do too much, if I overextend myself because a lot of people say, oh, people just take advantage of you then, because they can see you're a giver. Yeah, but givers need takers.
Right? If there aren't takers, then who are you going to give to? So you need givers need takers. So there will be people who feel empty, who need to fill themselves. Great.
But then it's about having intellect. It's like, am I actually helping this person by doing what I'm doing? I could walk past a guy in the street and I could put five pounds in his hand and walk away. I feel good. But have I checked that?
What's he going to do with that? That five pounds? He could go and buy drugs with it. He could go and it could be feeding some ring of, I don't know what it's going to do. Did I stop?
Take the time, find out what it is. What is it actually going to do for this person? That's intellect. You actually applying your intellect. Am I helping by doing this?
Because sometimes they say you got to be cruel to be kind. Right. So you've got to sometimes do things which are difficult. You may not give your kids something and it may be really painful, but you're teaching them a lesson. So actually, it's not about your actions, it's all about your intention behind it.
You may look like you're doing something terrible.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:08:40 - 01:08:48]
Yeah. We can only judge other people's intention, which we don't know, other than their actions, which means we cannot judge anybody.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:08:48 - 01:08:54]
Yeah, but ultimately, you know, if your intentions, if you're based on your mental state of mind.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:08:55 - 01:08:57]
So we can only judge ourselves. We can't judge others.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:08:57 - 01:08:58]
Yeah.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:08:58 - 01:08:59]
Because we don't know their intentions.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:09:00 - 01:09:30]
And you can only do it to your capacity as well. Right. Because as I said, the mind, if you're driving a car at 100 miles an hour, you turn the steering wheel too much, it's going to go off the road. Right. It needs to be a slow turn.
It's not doing things too much outside of your capacity. So give a little bit of time, because if you give too much, you'll start resenting. That's why I said it's going from selfish to unselfish. What's unselfish is both of us benefit. Right?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:09:30 - 01:09:55]
So it's not only me benefiting, we're both benefiting. Selfless got nothing to do with. Selfless is the ultimate, which has got nothing to do with me at all. It's a road to go down. So unselfish is okay.
I feel good. You feel good. We both helped each other. We both come out of here richer. They say, finding it even when you're doing a deal, win win.
So it's just taking the other person into consideration.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:09:55 - 01:09:59]
So unselfish is a level below selfless.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:09:59 - 01:10:02]
Yeah, selfless is. Selfless is the ultimate.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:10:02 - 01:10:03]
Is divine.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:10:03 - 01:10:46]
Is divine. Yeah, selfless is divine. Because you could say, well, yeah, but ultimately this is making me happier. Right? You can say, well, less agitation means I'm going to be a happier person.
So isn't that selfish? Because by giving to all these people, I'm going to be a much happier person. Isn't that selfish? Well, no, it's unselfish because they benefited and I've benefited. Right.
So it's a slow gain, but I think if you make yourself 1% better every day, you're 362 times better by the end of the year. Something like that. There's some math behind it, but ultimately, if you just do a little bit every day, do a few random acts of kindness, start with that.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:10:46 - 01:10:48]
Would you say you're living a fulfilled life?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:10:48 - 01:12:32]
Yeah, actually, it was very interesting that as I was studying, my wealth was increasing. The problem happened was my desires are reducing and my wealth is increasing. So I'm just getting richer and richer every day so that I have the money and I don't really have the desire to do many things with it personally, so I kind of have everything I need. I'm able to help people, and all of those people are relatively grateful, so everyone is giving back to me and, yeah, so I feel that I'm definitely happy.
I have everything I need. I'm able to help and give time and space to people, have time for myself, for my own. I'm relatively stress free, so I feel like I'm on a journey still. It's not perfect, but I definitely feel that this is a lifestyle to be shared with people. I definitely feel like, just try it.
And I think also, another thing is when you get money, money is energy. It's like medicine. You can take too much of it. Something that's really good for you can be really bad for you if you take too much, right? So it's about utilizing that energy for the right thing, the right reasons, and you can do so much with it.
But if you try and focus it on yourself or your family, and you concentrate it on such a small area, even your time, you finished your business, you sold your business, you got all this energy, you've got all this knowledge, and now I'm going to divert it to my children, right? They can have all the money, they can have all.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:12:32 - 01:12:33]
It is pretty typical.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:12:33 - 01:13:44]
Of course it is, because your home is your boundary. It's like, no, okay, my kids are fine, my family's fine. Okay, what about the community a little bit outside? What can I do for the community? What can we do to.
And that's what, with my planning permissions, that was my thing. It was like I'd go to the council and say, ok, what do we do with this building? What do you guys need? It's a derelict building in central London. What are we going to do with it?
Let's create a place where you can have jobs. And the councils loved it. They're like, yeah, we're all on the same page. And I feel like, as you keep doing that, your responsibility. I took on the role of a world fellow, of the Duke of Edinburgh award.
I was talking to Prince Edward about the values that being taught through Duke of Edinburgh tickets. And I just feel like the more unselfish you become, the more responsibility you have and then the more wealth you have, because that wealth is in your responsibility to distribute to other people. So just things get better and better. I mean, I'm definitely in a far better place than I've ever been, and I don't really need as much as I have, and therefore I feel full and I can share.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:13:45 - 01:13:46]
How do you define fulfillment?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:13:46 - 01:14:37]
Peace of mind. Peace of mind. So I would say, which is meditation. When they say meditate, what is meditation? Actually?
What's the ultimate meditation is having a still mind. You can only see your reflection in a still water body, right? If it's a lot of waves and ripples, you can't see yourself. And it's the same with your divine right. You can only see your true nature in a mind that's still.
So to see your true reflection, your mind has to be totally still, which is why what meditation is meditation. Your mind is just still. And that's when you see who you truly are. If your mind is agitated, you can't. So it's about slowly calming those waters down till it's completely still.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:14:37 - 01:14:40]
What do you think about silent retreats?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:14:40 - 01:15:44]
I think you shouldn't frustrate your mind. The mind is like a child. And if I take a child and I put him in a room and lock him in there, it's not right. It's not fair. It's cruel, actually.
So I feel that you can take the mind and like a child, slowly, slowly teach it, educate it, using your intellect. So it starts to become okay with wanting to sit down in a room by yourself for a day or wanting to sit in silence. Just want to be peaceful. Great, do it. But if your mind is agitated and you're all over the place and suddenly I put you.
And put you down and say, Kate, sit down for ten days or eight days and don't say anything, I don't know if that is very good. I think it's quite frustrating. It's suppressing the mind, it's frustrating. And I don't think those things are very good for you personally. Personally, I'm sure I've spoken to a lot of people who have done Vipassana and all these different retreats, and they've had great experiences.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:15:44 - 01:15:58]
So if someone wanted to really immerse themselves in ideas of your philosophy, the philosophy you enjoy studying.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:15:58 - 01:15:58]
Yeah.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:15:58 - 01:16:06]
Are there any other experience? It's not silent retreats, but something else which you would actually recommend?

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:16:06 - 01:16:56]
Yeah. I mean, as I said, self knowledge. So gnana yoga is knowledge of the self, of the divine, of your true nature. The whole philosophy, the Upanishads, the Vedas, the gita, and sort of offshoots of those which are self development today are all pathways. Right.
And what resonates with you? Some people, they're emotional. If you're emotional, then you'll do more devotional bhakti yoga. Right. If you are more intellectual, you do Jnana yoga, which is self studying knowledge.
The Vedanta treaties is a book which I had read and which I could continue, which is self knowledge. So just a little bit every day.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:16:53 - 01:16:56]
So learning and reading, rather than sitting silent for ten days.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:16:56 - 01:17:55]
Depending if you're an intellectual, I would say reading, studying and putting it into practice. Right. There's no point turning that knowledge into wisdom, which is this process of reflection and then a little bit of emotion. I think it's important to be grateful and be devotional, and music is really good for that. If you look at all religions, music has been the.
You have the organs in the church, and majority of religions use sound for devotion. So listening to things which invoke a more peaceful state of mind, I'd say if you're listening to music which is more materialistic and creating more desires, it creates more agitation and action, which is as an entrepreneur, as people who are active doing unselfish action, these are the three pathways that one needs to take.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:17:55 - 01:18:01]
Okay, Kunal, thank you so much. Amazing, inspiring, beautiful. Thank you so much.

Kunal Tulsiani: [01:18:01 - 01:18:02]
Pleasure. Thank you so much.

Anastasia Koroleva

Kunal Tulsani. Post-Exit Spiritual Growth: Finding New Purpose

Read Full Transcript

Timo Armoo. Retired At 27. Now What?

David Goldberg. Post-Exit Impact: $10B Pledged to Charities