Talents & Gifts

Are you using all the skills, knowledge and talent that you have been given by God? Are you sure? Do you know all your talents? If not, then I would like you to join me on this journey and I’m going to share the path that I took to increase my awareness.

Do you know that God has made us with certain unique talents that we have inside? These want to come outside or they want to explode. But for some reason – either it’s our upbringing, it’s our environment or the place we live or work – those talents have been suppressed. The idea here is to make you realize that you have those unique talents and I am going to help you in finding your unique talents today.

If you were to talk to a hundred people who have achieved success in their lives, you will find out that they might each give you a different answer as to how they achieved this success. You might hear a hundred different stories. They might say, “It’s my luck.” Some might say, “It’s my hard work.” Some might give credit to somebody in their family or their boss or their job; or some of them might have even experienced some tragedy in their life, either financial loss or health or whatever.

The end result is when you study these people, even if they have all given you different answers, they have something in common. One more thing I want to mention to you. Many people tell me, “Hey, Dr. A, I just happened to be at the right place at the right time.” Do you know opportunity knocks on all doors at ALL times? But, some of us don’t know when there is a knock on our door. Some of us don’t even know when that opportunity comes our way. Why is that? We don’t recognize what other people do, and that is going back to the level of awareness that we have inside.

When an opportunity comes my way and there is a knock on my door, if I don’t have increased awareness, I might not even hear it. So, it’s not being at the right time at the place, but it’s more about being aware that the opportunities are there.

The other thing I want to share with you is that these people have also followed certain principles, and these principles have been there from the beginning of time. They work for everyone. They work everywhere regardless of who you are.

To give an example, there is the principle of Cause and Effect. For every Effect, there is a Cause that initially set that effect into motion. It always works in nature and it will always work for you. So, whatever action I do, whatever I create, there will be an equal and opposite reaction. This is a simple law to be aware of.

In a similar way, awareness and unique talent are tied together. And in this session, I am going to talk to you about these principles. I can assure you that all successful people have applied these laws in their lives knowingly or unknowingly. In the majority of cases, you are going to find out that a person’s awareness has a direct relation of recognition of these principles and their proper application.

Let’s talk about awareness. What is it? How can you increase your awareness and what can you do about it? I think you know that awareness has a value and that is an increased awareness. See how simple it is? We want to constantly increase our awareness. I’m going to share my story about increased awareness.

I had a very successful practice, but not to the degree that I was happy or satisfied. I had a wonderful family and I had wonderful relationships with them, but not to a degree that I would call fulfilling. Once I came to that realization, I went on that journey to find out what I could do to take my practice and my personal life to the next level.

In doing that, I had to go out in search of answers. I searched every aspect of life I could. In fact, I had to even leave the seminars and courses given for my profession, and I went to the courses and seminars about the mind, and about personal growth. In a way, I had to put time, money and energy into me. This is the second factor of increased awareness. We will spend lots of money, time and energy on a physical item – sometimes I call it ‘collecting junk around me’. But, if we take part of that money and invest it in us to increase our awareness, you can imagine the results you will have. It will give you more financial freedom because you are going to grow. You are going to have wonderful relationships with your family and then you can buy more junk if you like. And there is nothing against that.

When telling you I went on this journey and I invested time, money and energy to improve myself, it may sound selfish as I am talking about just “me, me, me.” But do you know, a better me becomes a better doctor, which helps my patient. A better me becomes a better husband. A better me becomes a better father. I become a better community person so I can help more people. So, increased awareness and the money and time you spend in you is not being selfish as you are doing it to improve yourself and, thereby, help a large number of people.

Now, while we are on the discussion of awareness, I also came to recognize that for me to grow professionally – that is in my practice – I have to grow personally. In the past, I used to think that my personal life and professional life were not connected. I was very wrong. This awareness told me that in order for me to grow professionally, I have to grow personally. That means my personal life and professional life, unfortunately, cannot be separated. We are one being. We have one soul and we have one purpose, and they are connected. So, how can it be possible to separate someone personally and professionally?

I know in our Western culture we keep things private, saying that: “Hey, it’s my personal thing. Don’t even come into my comfort zone.” We need to look beyond that because my increased awareness, my coaching and mentorship and this program taught me that I just could not separate them. That’s just the way it is. And the sooner we accept this fact, the better off we will be.

Show me one person whom you know is unhappy at work, but has an awesome personal life or vice versa. That’s the true essence of this story. The good news here is that whatever steps I took to improve my practice also helped me improve myself personally. You can look in a positive way that you are getting a double benefit no matter what you do. You are improving both aspects of your life with the same training.

So, this training and increased awareness brought 400% growth in my practice in four short years. It also brought my relationships not only with my wife, Shashi, but my three children, Amol, Shali and Shena. Also all of my nieces and nephews and their spouses and other immediate family member benefited as my love and understanding of their needs increased to a higher level. Isn’t that awesome?

Now, before I started this journey, if somebody had told me or predicted where I would be today, I probably would have laughed at them. My awareness at that time could not have perceived the success in my professional and personal life, which I have achieved. This is the value; this is the benefit if you make a little attempt and try to increase your awareness. I didn’t even know my hidden talents, which God gave me.

It’s like a computer. You buy a nice computer and you don’t even know what software it carries until you work with it. And this is similar to what happened with me. So, when we came to this earth, God had installed some of this software in us and those are our God-given talents.

I want to share a different way of looking at the result and benefit of increased awareness. Remember, I talked to you about the interconnectedness of the personal and professional life? Let us look at it this way: You improved professionally and you are having awesome results. As a result of that, your financial life also is going to get better. Now, wouldn’t you want to enjoy the benefit of that growth? So now I am very successful in my business, but I have a terrible personal life. Do you think I will be able to enjoy the benefit of that professional growth? I don’t think so.

The way to look at it is that when you achieve certain successes in life, you want to enjoy the fruit of that success. The joy and the happiness that success brings to you, your soul wants to expand and experience the whole of life. If I have worked hard and achieved some professional or financial success in my life, I really want to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

A better way to put it is that if I achieve success with hard work, working longer hours, or making changes in my life and then I'm not happy, my success will carry a lot less value. I might not be able to enjoy this success to its fullest, and that is what the awareness is all about. Don’t you agree? And, that is The Essence of Life.

One more important point that we should share here, and that is that the interconnectedness of the personal and professional life is so important that it makes my journey, my effort and my success easier to achieve, because it’s not draining from other distraction. Think about a car with a 12-volt battery. It requires that much energy to start the car. Now, you attach three more appliances to it. That battery will not have that much power for the car to go.

Similar things happen if I take my life and I attach lots of chaos to it. It is like draining the battery, and then I don’t have that full power to improve my professional life because my personal life is not in order. So, the connection is very simple: For me to work at full energy level, I need to have both aspects of my life in order.

I also realize that awareness is like a pendulum phenomena of awareness. You might say, “What the heck is that?” Don’t go and look in Webster’s Dictionary because you are not going to find that word. This was my own experience of awareness that created it. So, like a pendulum swings from the left and then goes to the right; in a similar way, if my pendulum of awareness is at level one and then I increase my awareness to level two, the awareness of level one increases. The relationship of the pendulum is like a pendulum that keeps going back and forth; a similar thing happens with the awareness. With every increased level of awareness, your awareness levels before that becomes higher.

What I’m trying to say here is this: As you make an effort to increase your awareness, your understanding of what was there before already in your life becomes clearer. It starts giving you more power. It starts giving you more energy. It starts giving you more direction to make your decisions in life real quick and real fast. That’s what increased awareness will do.

Now, probably the question is popping up your mind, "What awareness level am I at, and what are the different levels he is talking about?" Let me explain that to you. It doesn’t matter where your level of awareness is. All you have to focus on is that you need to increase your awareness. How do you do that? Well, by listening to programs like this, by reading material and by making an attempt to recognize that you need to increase your awareness.

It is not of any value what level you are at. It is not a mathematical formula. It’s about using your awareness to bring better results to your personal and professional life. That is so simple. Don’t make it confusing. Just recognize only one simple fact: Increasing your awareness will bring you wonderful awesome results in your life and you are going to be a happier person and enjoy everything you have around you. That is all there is to it.

My personal coach, Bob Proctor, made me aware of seven levels of awareness. And again, don’t worry about where you are. The idea is to enjoy and improve your quality of life. Here are the seven levels of awareness: animal, mass, aspiration, individuality, discipline, experience and mastery.

The animal level is about fight and flight, where all we worry about is daily survival. I was surprised to find out that a certain percent of the population does exist in that level, where all they are worried about is getting through the day. That is an animal level of awareness.

The second one is mass awareness. Do you know that the majority of the population on this earth is at that level of awareness, because whatever the masses do, they must be right. So, therefore, I want to do the same thing. The reality is masses always have been wrong. So, don’t follow the masses. Think for yourself.

And that brings the topic of the next awareness, which is 'aspiration.' Don’t you have certain desires? Don’t you ever feel you are missing certain things in life? Don’t you have certain things that you think about every day and say, "I wish I had it?" Those are called desires, and they are called 'aspirations.'

However, you are afraid to live your desires because the masses are not doing that and you are afraid to go away from the masses. You are afraid to go left when everybody’s going right. Go to the left! It’s your life and this is your desire! And remember, the desire came from your soul, your inner voice. The problem with mass awareness is that you become used to listening to the outside noises and you ignore what is coming from inside.

When I was growing up as a child, everyone in my family was an engineer. My Dad, although he was a very nice person, told me that if I did not become an engineer, he would not pay my tuition. Now, that is a mass mentality and if I had followed that mass mentality, maybe I would not be where I am today.

Let me share another desire with you. I had this desire to share what I have done in life and my successes, with you. The outer noises told me I could not because I have an accent; my grammar is not perfect; people will not listen to me. You know, I put that on the sideline and here I am, sharing my story with you. So, don’t pay attention to my accent, don’t pay attention to the way I pronounce certain things. Pay attention to the content. Because it’s not about how I talk, it’s about your life, and you want to make that progress, don’t you? Don’t you want to go to that next level? I’m sure you do. That’s why you are listening to this program. So, let’s go to the next level.

The next level is ‘individuality’, where you become you, where you listen to you, where you listen to your desires as to what you want to accomplish. That is where you start ignoring the masses. I am going to keep reminding you about the pendulum effect because that is what is going to happen. The minute you go to that level, the mass mentality, the mass awareness will try to pull you right back. It really will. And when the mass mentality pulls you back, ignore it. Ignore the outside noises. Listen to your inner voice. And once you listen to your inner voice, apply some discipline. Make certain rules for yourself, which brings us the next level of awareness, which is ‘discipline’.

The reason you have to have ‘discipline’ is because ever since you were born and wherever you are, whatever age group you are in, you have certain preconceived notions, which have been instilled in your mind. This mass mentality will keep you pulling back. So, put ‘discipline’ in your life and say, “Hey, listen. I don’t care what the consequences will be. It’s me and this is my desire and that’s my inner voice and I’m going to do it.”

I had to force myself. I had to do certain things with a strong willpower. I had to put that ‘discipline’ into the system to accomplish what I have, and I put discipline in every day, even now, so I can improve not only my life, but I can help all the people surrounding me.

Once you learn to apply ‘discipline’ into your desire and make it into a reality, all of a sudden, the next level of awareness shows up. That is ‘experience’. Now, what does that mean? Let’s say you’re trying to lose 15 pounds. You stand on that scale and you have lost 3 pounds. What did you just experience? You experienced a feeling of bliss because you saw the results. You experienced the result, the value of increased awareness and this is like addiction. It’s a good addiction. Once I accomplish certain results, my God, that feeling is so great, I want to do more of it.

I am going to share what happened in my practice. Six years ago, I decided to make 100% growth. I mean that to be 100% in one year. With my increased awareness and applying these levels on a daily basis, when my collection, my production, my number of patients, the satisfaction of team members started increasing, and once I started experiencing the results, I was in a different place. It gave me so much more motivation to do more and do more and do more. Once you can experience the outcome and the results, it will take you to the next level, and that is called ‘mastery’.

Why do you go to ‘mastery’? Because once I enjoyed the results, my creative mind wanted to have more of it. Remember, the soul is always for expansion and full of expression. The inner talent that you have been given by God, will force you to think and act, and that is the mastery level.

So, in ‘animal’ level, which is the first level, you react. In the highest level, which is ‘mastery,’ you respond and act. And when you respond and act, nothing you do will stop the growth. Enjoy it! Isn’t that a wonderful feeling? That is just how it is and nobody can stop you. It is up to you. You can stay where you are or take action and increase your awareness so you can have a wonderful life.

With this increased awareness, you will see more in what’s already there. You will experience more of what is already present. This increased awareness will give you the power to think more creatively. It will give you the strength and courage to act in the right way. And once you have these results, you’ll be amazed.

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So devote time for yourself and find a way to increase your awareness. Listen to this program as many times as you can and your awareness will go to the next level.

Now, let me go through some exercises for you in this section of awareness. Before starting the exercise, a reminder: you do have that talent in you. It was installed in you when you arrived on this earth. Don’t get discouraged. It will happen! We are going to give you a very simple exercise to discover your awareness and unique talent.

I would like you to write down all the talents that you think you have right now with your present awareness. Make a list of them. Write down even those talents that you think you are fairly good at it. Once you have written these talents on a piece of paper, then identify the ones that really make you happy, proud and satisfied.

You might not be applying any of these right now in your tailored profession. That’s not important. Now, find out which of these talents that you just marked can be used to service others? How can you fulfill your responsibilities of your God-given talent, and how can you help this universe? You will discover, like magic, that good things will begin to happen to you.

You do this exact same exercise in your business with one modification. Instead of writing your talents, ask your coworkers, ask your boss, ask people whom you trust to give you an honest opinion, and have them write down the talents you possess. Now, you know that we all are not good at everything we do. We have certain things we are awesome at and certain things we just do to get the job done. I’m interested here for you to find out what talents you possess in your business or trade. At the end, once you have received this honest feedback and input from the other people in your work, try to work at making those talents even stronger.

Now, there’s a funny thing I am going to share with you. I have taken many tests in my life and going through this personal improvement program, many mentors had asked me what are my weaknesses are. My personal philosophy on that is to ignore your weaknesses, because if you work on your weaknesses, your weakness gets stronger. So instead of working on your weakness, why not work on the strengths you already have because we are all put on this earth with different unique talents.

Do you know, in my office I have designed a 40-minute test on their computers, that each person can take. This test focuses only on showing your strengths, and I’ll give you an example: One of my team members who used to work in the financial department of our practice has always had back problems. She always had a cough and cold, and she used to come to work looking like she was still tired and sleepy.

I put her through this test we realized that she is an awesome person with some unique talent, but they were not in financing. The minute I moved her to the insurance and marketing department, she blossomed. She had lost weight. She comes to work happy, and I’m sure her orthopedic surgeon is not happy because she’s no longer his patient.

Now, let’s go back to the exercise. Create some time in your schedule that is devoted to increasing your awareness. The one simple way to increase your awareness is try to connect from within. Have some peaceful moments alone in your personal life and where you can start this process. Connect with the inner you, because lots of time with the noises and hectic life outside, we get disconnected from ourselves.

Find some time to read good, educational material, which are designed for personal growth. Surround yourself with as many successful people as you can. Don’t surround yourself with people who always talk about debt, poverty, losses or bad news. Listen to your inner voice, which we are trained to suppress. Listen to programs like this, The Essence of Life, frequently.

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Your awareness, your own present talents, will help you achieve greater results. They always have and they always will. It is all up to you. Make a list of the material that you’re going to read. Remember, we talked about discipline. That’s what it’s all about. Call or go to our web site and we can provide you with a list of good reading material.

This is Dr. A, and thank you.