The Most Empowering Truth You'll Hear Today with Manish Shah

The Freedom Inside Your Mind

SPEAKER_00 0:00

People think I want to be my own boss, I don't want to answer to anybody, I want to do this, I want to do that. The freedom that we're really chasing is the limitations of your own mind, the things that you put inside of you. I believe when we arrive at Earth, we are, for the most part, perfect. Then the world starts throwing stuff on. Expectations and habits, they throw all this stuff on. Trying to calm the noise from the outside that's going on so you can hear that truth that is the universal one welling up inside

Welcome And Why Gratitude Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:33

you.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Welcome to the Yog Nation, the Spirit of Gratitude podcast on the OneTech platform. Hello, friends. My name is Yogesh Patel, and this podcast explores the themes of bullying, self-awareness, and the power of our inner spirit, including the silent battles we all face. Join me every week as I invite high-profile guests as we explore how adversity shapes us, how gratitude lifts us, and how we can all uncover the inner strength that we all have within ourselves. Join the conversation. I appreciate you listening in.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Citizens, they say if your dreams don't scare you, they may not be big enough. My next guest, Manish Shah, dared to dream big, and the courage has paid off. He's a founder and CEO of Maya T, a nationally recognized beverage manufacturer based in Arizona. His story starts with very humble beginnings. What began with one recipe inspired by his childhood memories of India? He started selling chai with a four-foot table at the Tucson Farmers Markets, which has now grown into a thriving brand. Manish not only has built a successful company, he has helped other entrepreneurs make sense of uncertainty, challenging their thinking, and decide whether fear is telling them to walk away or dream even bigger. And I can certainly understand that with the butterflies in the stomach we all have. Today we explore the courage to dream bigger, the humility to keep learning, and the gratitude that comes from using your experiences to help others move forward. And with gratitude, welcome to the podcast, Manish.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Thank you so much for having me, Yugesh.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

It's wild. Wow. Yeah, that was quite the introduction. Well, you're quite well. Well, we're gonna find out, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:09

We're gonna see what we can drop here today.

Rock Bottom And A Chai Idea

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Absolutely. Well, tell us about the journey starting Maya T and what were some of the adversities you had to overcome?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Wow. Um, so in uh 1994, 95, I hit rock bottom, right? Like just literally depressed, super lonely. Like I just didn't really have any clue as to what I was supposed to do next. I was 24, 25 at the time. And uh, you know, I was like, I gotta I gotta figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life, so to speak, right? I gotta do something. And um we come from a family of entrepreneurs, historically, uh, pretty, pretty normal in a South Asian family. Yes. And so I said, okay, well, what's a business that I can create for myself? And uh what can I make? And the only thing, at the time I was doing some marketing for the local farmers markets, and I said, Well, what can you make? I was the only thing I can actually make, it wasn't a very good cook at the time. Yay, that's changed. Uh, it was that I would make I I knew how to make chai. Okay. And I could make chai, I would make chai for my parents uh while growing up because we owned a motel and during, as you know, like in the afternoons, everybody wants their chai. Yep, they're they're picking me up, yeah, a little snack. And so I learned how to make that. And over the years, that just became my thing. And in ninety five, ninety six, there was this thing that was just sort of coming to fruition. Maybe you've heard of it, the internet. Yes. And uh we would like put you would put the phone on, right? And beep, beep, beep, and you would and there was this thing that oh, uh there's this quiet growing interest in chai, and they were just in different pockets of the country. Um, Berkeley, California, Portland, Oregon, just here and there. And I thought, well, why not? Why not me? Right. And so that's how I got started. I started by making chai in tea bags. Um they they were they were pretty small. I packed them 20 in a in a package and sold them for five dollars at the farmer's market, and that's how we got started. And that was uh we f sold our very first bags in I f sold my very first bags in '96 and really uh started doing the farmers markets in um like March of 97. 1997, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

So this was a 30-year journey.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

A full 30-year journey, yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

How did you stay patient with yourself and with the business?

SPEAKER_00 4:35

That's a great question. People ask me all the time, what's the secret of my success? And I I be I I think the first thing is persistence. It be like it's no it's no giant secret. I just never gave up. I must have had a million opportunities to give up. I so what kept you going? I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know what else to do. And that's part of it. And on another part, there is there was something inside that just said, This is your path. This is your path. You just don't know it yet. Um, we'll call it an inner knowing. I know that feels very nebulous for people, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Like, how would you know it's a self-awareness?

SPEAKER_00 5:25

It is self-awareness, but it's is it self-awareness or is there something else calling you? You know, um, is the divine speaking to you? At what point does that come to you? Um in 94, I that's when I had my sort of um moment with the divine before I never even considered a spiritual life uh underpinning anything that I was ever doing or talking about. And in 94, when you hit rock bottom, and I mean rock bottom, right? And you go, Wow, I'm in bad shape here.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Is that just because of expectations set on your placed on your soul?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

No, I broke up with somebody and I see just uh didn't have any money and just like everything uh like we we could just like if there was a if there was a URL, everything really sucked.com, right? Like the whole thing was like just terrible, right? And so we just said this rock. I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you. You could laugh at me, like now it doesn't matter, right? Because things are like that. But at that moment in time, it was so difficult. And so what do you do? Who do you reach out to? Or what do you and you just look, and then at some point, you know, something's like, no, wait a minute, there's something you you're missing something, right? And then you just go, okay, well, what am I missing? And you just keep asking a question and another question, another question, another. And eventually, like you can't ignore the serendipitousness. You can't ignore some of the things that are happening that you didn't do. And so, so, so you to answer your question, one, I didn't really have any choice or any idea what else I was going to do. The second is that um I felt I was being led or that I had a purpose or something more meaningful that I couldn't put my finger on. And so it gave me just enough like sort of wanting to move to the next level. And the third is that, and I can't say why. Deep down inside, I was like, no, I can see something bigger. I can see something. You know, like this, so I could just see something bigger.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

No, any, really, okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

No, I just could see it.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

And just I could see the potential. And I was like, okay, well, then there's something next. There's something next, there's something next.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

I think, and let me just interrupt here for a moment because that is what the theme of the podcast is how adversity shapes success through the lens of gratitude around five core pillars. And I think you hit every one of them, which is appreciation, awareness, humility, courage, and resilience.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Oh, really? Yeah. Look at me. Yeah. Yay, me. Congratulations. Well, we didn't, we didn't, we didn't preamble all this. I just want to be clear, this was just a natural thing. Absolutely. And I'm and I'm glad that that story resonates consistently across all of the guests that you've had here. Because I think, isn't that the value of not only the podcast, but so much of what you do and what we do is that hey, you have to sort of have these five things, right? Like you're swinging or you're using these five tools on a regular basis. And you too, anybody can take these five tools and sort of navigate their own life to be sort of the best version of themselves they can be. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_03 8:39

Like, yeah, let's go. Well, and that bleeds into your business success, translating into your personal success. Oh,

Why Business Exposes Your Inner Limits

SPEAKER_03 8:46

yeah. What came first?

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Uh, they're hand in hand. So I always say that the best part of being an entrepreneur isn't the money. Um, I'm not I'm not saying the money, no, I'm not saying the money sucks. Let's just be clear here. Nobody's saying the money is awful, right? And money is such an interesting metric. We always judge that, right? Right. And so many people are like, oh, uh, I want to be free. I want to be this, I want to be my own boss. I'm like, really? You think you're gonna be your own boss? Soon as you hire that first employee, you are not the boss. You're not the boss. They you imagine trying to do something without your employees. You're and I don't like referring to my people as my employees. They're they're team members, okay? And I couldn't do what I do without them. So, first, first thing, yay, to the folks that help me get to be where I get to be. That's the first thing. But but I work for them just as much as they work for me. All right. So there's no freedom in that regard. Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Um, so what is what you mentioned, though. Being an entrepreneur is a path to freedom.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

But not in the way that people think about it when they start off.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

And do tell, explain that.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Okay, so there's freedom. You people think I want to be my own boss, I don't want to answer to anybody, I want to do this, I want to do that. The freedom that we're really chasing is the limitations of your own mind, the things that you put inside of you. You're not getting free from the outside world, you're getting free from the inside world. And if you want to be a success in business, you got to straighten out what's going on inside first, or at least at the same time. And sometimes you don't know what it is that you got to straighten out on the inside, right? Well, guess what's gonna tell you? That business is gonna tell you all day, every day, where you need to change. The challenges within your business and the challenges within everything that you're doing are gonna reflect back and gonna be like, man, I gotta fix this. And fixing this problem begins with fixing me. That's how you get it done.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Can you fix it without being an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Oh, of course. There must be many ways to do that. I okay, I I can't speak to that because this is this is just what I do. I I suppose if I was like a top-notch surfer, which seems so silly to even say out loud, but it's the only analogy we care. It'd be random to come up with right, not really that great a swimmer, but um uh like if that was my thing, right? Maybe like being a competitive surfer or being something like that, um, maybe that would be okay, right? Like maybe there's a there's that. But the thing about being an entrepreneur, uh, which I think I think it's the best game, because um when you when you engage in that, first of all, there is no, like there's just so many things you have to be good at. You got to be good at finance, you gotta be good at branding, you gotta be good at communication, you gotta be good with people, you gotta be good with like there's a there's a bunch of stuff you have to learn. Right. Right? Like it's not just it's like a decathlon. It's not just like, oh, I get to throw this thing. You gotta be able to play all the sports and all the positions. That's the first thing. Or you gotta know them. Um, second, in any field, right? Like you want to make chocolate, okay? You want to make music, you want to provide a service, right? There's in the essence of being an entrepreneur is ultimately that you have to bring value to somebody, something, right? Yes. It's creation of value. Well, how many different ways can you create value? Well, the number of ways to create value is as variant as the number of people that exist. Every person is valuable, so you must have something of value to bring to the table. So entrepreneurship just allows you to do that, right? What's your value?

SPEAKER_03 12:29

It's not meant for everyone, though, based on who they are. No, no, it's not meant for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

But I think that as far as I'm concerned, um, perhaps the spiritual path can be taken by the actual spiritual path. Like I guess I could have become a monk or I could have done any number of things, right? And sure there is that. And you could become a musician and find. I'm not, I would never put I would never put any confines on the divine. Let's just put it that way. That would be that would be kind of foolish, right? Like and risky. And very risky, right? Let's let's just be smoted right here on the show. But the truth of the matter is, is that entrepreneurship is a pretty good field and nobody would think about it. No, I maybe not nobody, but I think it would I think let me put it to you in a different way. I think if anybody had really done it, come from nothing to something as an entrepreneur, and you really sit down with them at the end and they've got something, a few things will always I think come to the surface. Money's great. The freedom from what was when they started, the thoughts, the limitations, the this and that. That is really what was great. The discovery of the best parts of themselves, that was great. And um probably didn't know that that was what they were gonna get into when they started. Of course. I'd love to do now that you na man, that was a great question. Because now all of a sudden I want to ask a bunch of people, like, hey man, like am I the only one? I don't think so. Because I've heard this consistently across others.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

Well, again, is the difference in what you tell a fellow entrepreneur different than perhaps a person that has a dream that they aspire to be something?

SPEAKER_00 14:09

You know, I don't know. Uh that's a great question.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

Uh the only people Because a lot of the audience, right, are folks that are professionals, right? Like you. They have a dream, they have an idea, they're held back for whatever reason. They we don't know. It could be something that uh, you know, family obligations or time or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Well, I I I think there's certainly some universal principles that apply across all professions and across yes, there are some universality to it. Um but the question that you asked is would I say that I don't know? Because you it's always about who the questioner is, right? Like uh I'm responding to your questions now. Um, so far, the vast majority of the questions that I have gotten have been from other entrepreneurs. So those are the ones that I'm answering at the moment, um, along with, you know, questions like from my kids and from you know the the people around me.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

But at this point, everybody's been kind of in the business world.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

But I would have to think that there's similarities as a parent teaching their son or daughter some of these entrepreneurial principles that are actually within all of us. Yes.

unknown 15:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

Elaborate.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Oh my gosh. I guess that that could take uh quite a few shows.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

Give me two.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

All right, two.

Nobody Is Coming To Save You

SPEAKER_00 15:30

I think nobody succeeds until you make this one big decision. If it's got to be, it's up to me. Until you relinquish this notion that somebody is coming to save you. Right. Nobody is coming to save you. Honestly, I'm not sure anybody even I mean, like your parents might care or whatever. Right. But you won't you on your own. You're on your own.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

That's scary for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Whether it's scary or not, I really doesn't matter. You're on your own. You're on your own. So that's what you have some sort of empathy towards the people that are empathy, emp empathy is great.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

But you gotta you're on your own.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

I can have empathy for you, but you're on your own, man.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

True.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

You gotta figure this stuff out. Yeah. I can I can I can offer you how many pieces of advice can I offer you? But if you don't take it or you don't internalize it, or you internalize it not fully, like you know what I mean? It's still up to you. You gotta sound like my wife. Do I? Oh, I'm so sorry. Sorry. What's your wife's name? I'm kidding. You're right. Anything you say is right. Do you just remember that? Uh but you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like it doesn't matter. So so that's the first thing. Okay. That applies to everything. Right. That applies to everyone. If you don't look, you just have to look across. You look across the gamut of all the people that are around, and the people who take responsibility for their life versus the people who don't take responsibility for life, right? It's very, very clear, right? Like it's clear as day. And to what degree? And how far do you go to the extreme? Right? The people who take the most extreme stance on everything that manifests in their world, like everything is my responsibility. It's a huge burden. It is. But I'll tell you what, it works out if you're willing to pay attention. And the people who like just give it up and be like, okay, whatever, man, they just get slapped around. Right. Right. Like, I can I was like, great, be slapped around. I hope. But man, that looked like it hurt. Like when you see other people, like that looks like it hurts. I'm a I'm gonna step away because I have empathy and I can't watch this. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

So that's that I think applies to almost every um and thank you for saying that because that is actually the messaging uh of this podcast, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Oh, good. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

Okay. And so it's number two.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

So number two, I think is is the next phase of that. If it's gonna be up to you, right, then you have it. I'm sorry, you have it. You have it. You have what you need. Or you have access to what you need. If it's gonna be up to you as a universal principle, it would be really crappy that if it was up to you and you didn't have the goods.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Does it make sense? Somewhat. It's starting to sink in. You have it. I don't know. I mean, yes, you probably see that I have it. No, I don't know. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

It doesn't matter whether I see it or not or whatever. You have to go get it. You have to figure out what is the best version of you. Gotcha. So you got some. You have something. If it's gonna be up to you, then you have something. So you gotta go get it. You gotta go find it. That's that's it. That's it. I mean, uh whatever you do, wherever you are, whoever you are, whatever you're going, it doesn't you don't have to be an entrepreneur. I agree, entrepreneurship isn't cut out for everybody. But it could be it could be parenthood, it could be a teacher, it could be anything. If that's the best version of you, go get it. Go find it. Yeah, yeah. That's I mean, uh at the end of it all, I'm not sure. Yeah, right. Yeah, that makes sense. Right? And yeah, those are that's that applies universally. You put me on the spot, but probably a bunch bunch of others, but now I feel like I gotta maybe on the right home, I'll compile other things. But those two things, you can't you can't start a conversation around anything unless that person is willing to take responsibility. I will add me, there's another oh, I got one more. You want me to go 2.5, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3?

SPEAKER_03 19:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Um, another principle I think that is almost universal is that the creation of anything, like the it's in you. Okay, great. This is an extension of the first one. It's in you, right? Right, right? Sure. There's a couple of different ways to get to mine that, to get in there and to get it out. There's pain or there's peace.

unknown 20:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

I choose the path of peace. You choose the path of peace. But it doesn't come without pain in the first.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Well, I think pain is just the natural consequence. Right? Like there's always there's always contrast, there's always challenge, there's always something. And eventually, you know, you have to try to find peace with that. And as you continue to compile your wins, right? As you continue to do that, your quest is for peace. And if you're really trying to create something incredible, peace the peace is big.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

Well, I chase tranquility.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Tranquility is fine. Tranquility is very common. We have shanti. We have shanti within our culture. Correct. Right? Shanti. And shanti isn't peace. Shanti is not tranquility, because there's a there's an underlying harmony, uh it's such a deep word, right? Um there's so much going on underneath, but it's all calm. Right. Yeah. It means the uh it's you know, I I look at Shanti and I think the word alignment.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Okay. Yeah.

Peace, Shanti, And Real Alignment

SPEAKER_03 21:14

How does alignment differ than luck when it comes to your business or your personal life?

SPEAKER_00 21:19

You know, people always say like luck, isn't that that's you're not allowed to curse, right? No. Okay, great. No, that's fine. I've I I appreciate I'd have gone off there. Because some people, some people deserve to be. Um you don't get lucky. You just set yourself up for the opportunity of serendipity. Dumb that down again. So, like, I can sit here. My phone is not gonna ring, but I planted 2,500 seeds over whatever amount of time of people that I met that I exchanged business cards. With that, I told a joke, maybe met at a restaurant, said something on color, off color, something, right? I didn't sit still. And then 15 or 18 years later, they were like, hey man, I found you on LinkedIn. I remember we had this conversation, and today I was thinking about doing something, and I just wanted to talk to you about it. Okay. And then that begins. Whatever. Right? Like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

So is this luck though?

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Because is it luck? If you look at it from the outside, it looks lucky. To do what? To get a call like that. The call came out of the blue. Okay. Right? I I just don't know what luck is.

SPEAKER_03 22:46

Uh everybody says there's the adage, the harder you work, the luckier you get.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Sure. Isn't that the same thing? Right? Like, I'm not sure there is anything. There isn't. I don't, and I'm not a betting person. I want to be clear. I don't, I don't, I'm the worst person to take to a casino. I'm like, every damn day that I live, I put my life at risk, and there's a gamble in my job and my work. So I'm not a gambler. However, it's the number of bets that you place, man. Yeah. You know, we always talk about like trade shows or this and that. The worst trade show you can ever do is the one you don't show up to. Okay. You don't, you gotta show up. Showing up is is everything. And so if you continue to show up time and time and time again, relentless, relentless to the channel.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

You know, that's a life philosophy for anyone that is going through a challenge or a struggle, is to show up for that person that's going through that particular thing that's upsetting them or bothering them, or perhaps at the UH at the age of 23, 24, not knowing what to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

You know, this is a I I don't know how into this we want to get, but um, you know, when I we went to the farmer's market in the early years, like I I might sell 10, 12 packages at $5 a piece. That's 60 bucks, man. 50 or 60 bucks. Show up for 50 or 60 dollars in the heat in Arizona on a Saturday, cost of goods, rent, whatever. I would take home nothing.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Or be minus.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Minus, too. Some days it was minus.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Keep showing up, keep showing up, keep showing up, keep showing up, keep building. I did.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

I think that's that's really motivating for the listeners. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Let me give you the motivation around that.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

We won't name names or we won't go with this, but I've shown up. We got a call out of the blue from a distributor who has a very large chain that's one of their accounts, who also knew us that we were chasing. We couldn't land this account because we didn't have X distributor.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

We didn't have a distributor for this account.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

And one fine day, all of that comes together effortlessly. I mean, they were like, hey, they want to try some samples. Okay. What's the price? Here you go. Bam. Out of nowhere. Three pallets. Monday morning. Oh, okay. PO for three pallets. That's $20,000. Wow. And that's probably pretty regular, they're gonna order. The guy who couldn't who was selling $60

Showing Up Until Serendipity Hits

SPEAKER_00 25:30

at a farmer's market didn't really do anything. Oh, is this lucky, right? Is it luck? I put in my time, man. I'm sorry. I did it. I I I deserve that phone call or that P.O. for $20,000. Sure. I put in the work. I deserve that. But I showed up. So am I lucky? I don't know. I I'm I'm I'm less prone to implying that it's luck. I believe you make your own fate.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

You make your own fate.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

I like that.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yeah. I don't I I wouldn't say, yeah, I'm I'm careful with that word lucky.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Integrity And The Imposter Voice

SPEAKER_03 26:10

What about the word integrity?

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Boy, isn't that a loaded word. Integrity. In integrity, I think, as people talk about it, implies truthfulness.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Right? Yeah. And there's two types of truths. There's the external truth and then there's the internal truth. Um, external truth. Okay. Yes. Let's let's start with that. That's the easy one. Okay. I really like your socks. I'm truthful. Yeah, I do. I really do. I think it's great. I like, I like this show. I like what you've set up here, right? Um, that's Backlot Studios. So yeah. Well, also Backlot, yeah, great studios. But um, like, do we do we are we truthful with our customers? Are we truthful with our employees? Are we truthful with our suppliers? Are we just generally truthful?

SPEAKER_03 26:58

Relationships at large.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_03 27:00

Your parent, child, all of it. Teacher.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

And so sometimes you can't always be open and truthful. You have to be careful. You might hurt that person. Maybe that person's out to hurt you. So you got to be careful with your sharing. Right. Right? What you share has to be um careful. But at the same time, over the long term, that comes back in huge dividends.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Because everybody's like, that person is a straight shooter. If they tell you, that's what's going to happen. And if they say they made a mistake, they made a mistake. Or right, like integrity pays dividends over the long haul. It is probably a short-term, not an optimal short-term strategy. It is an excellent long-term strategy. So integrity does play a big part of that. So you were talking about with luck and so forth. So that is part of the seeding process, is being a person of integrity and seeding the process. Love it. Right? Yes. Okay, fine. Yeah. Internal integrity. No, that is a bear. How truthful are you being with yourself? Yes. And what are you hearing and what are you saying and what are you doing? Right? Um to this day, I'm comfortable here, right? Um, it's fine. Uh do I even belong here? You're on Yog Nation, of course. No, but like, do it, no, no. Do I even belong here? Like, haven't you had like captains of industry and Olympic athletes and doctors who've saved lives and this and that? And like, like, you know, you've had these luminaries here, and I'm like, man, I just I'm just a guy who puts things in hot water, right?

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Like, but people can relate to your story.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

My point, my point is your question was about integrity.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Wait, where's the fine line between integrity and imposter syndrome? Like, do you believe that voice? Everybody has that voice. Like, you can't, you won't, you aren't. The inner critic. The inner critic, any number of things, man. Inner critic, all of the all of the scripts you grew up with is the inner critic or is it other people, right? Like whose integrity, like the internal dialogue, the conditioning. Yeah, sure. Sure. And how do you how do you know what's the right voice to listen to? We talked about the silence and the piece of it all. And trying to calm the noise from the outside that's going on so you can hear that truth that is the universal one welling up inside you. Oh, dude, that is so hard. Holy cow.

SPEAKER_03 30:06

Well, I think that's the message for any person that's listening to this podcast in a quiet corner of their room, right? Meditating on what you just said.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Oh, God. The stuff that I have heard that I thought was like my own internal dialogue was to this day. Sometimes I hear myself and I was like, be quiet, man. Be quiet. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, do you it's hard. Yeah, it is very hard. It's very hard to know. So I think external integrity, yes. Being true to yourself, having integrity with yourself, yeah, much harder standard. Much harder standard. Right. Because we just question it. We just question it all the time. And it's a slippery slope, and you just do the best you can. So I would say, yeah, do the best you can. Like we're always doing the best we can with integrity. Like I would say that just be open and honest is safe for your safe for you externally and internally. Wow. That's a good luck. That's a that's a that's a hard one. I don't even know if anybody that's a tough thing to master, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Yeah. Well, let's get on to some topics that are not so hard.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

So no, this is isn't that you know, that's what your your show is about the tough.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

Let's let's let's let's have a little fun. So Okay. All right.

Tea As Culture, Community, And Calm

SPEAKER_03 31:27

Coffee. The cousin of tea, I think.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Well, everything, well, hold on.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

Yeah. So my question is is to me when I think of coffee or coffee house, there's a a certain romanticism. Italian cafe, perhaps drinking coffee at the Champs-Élysées. That mental imagery of coffee. Sure. What is it for tea?

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Well, you say that the with when we're comparing coffee and tea, but tea is actually the second most consumed beverage in the world. So more places and more plus people consume tea than coffee. So let's start with the it's just in this, it's just in the United States. But in many, many countries, tea is the prevalent beverage of choice. So that's the first thing. Um I stand corrected. No, well, I mean, I'm but but I don't think rather than say that it's the romanticness of it, let's talk about the in set as the essentialness of it. Right? We the romantic is just the the decoration that you put on. Okay. Right? But I think this'll speak to you. You've you've been to India, you've gone to the railway station, where the man in the loincloth possibly a child, whether we disagree with it or not, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is in the clay cups, has that giant pot boiling. Romance? That's interesting. Or not. Hope. I don't know. Uh when I have it, I it's deeply, deeply meaningful for me. Yeah because of what I do for a living. Right. At the train station or the carts, you know, the on the roadside. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. That guy pours his cup of chai. Just pours that cup of chai. Yeah. Right? Or you go uh sorry, citizens, money having a little a little bro moment. Yeah, exactly. A little daisy moment in our in our native uh tongue. Yes, in our native, but see what I'm saying? Yeah. But but multiply that by by in South America, the vendor pouring a a gourd of mate in a bombilla and three or four people sharing it. I just think that's community. Yeah, we all have our our every every I don't want to call it civilization because I don't want somebody to say, oh, this is civilized or not. But everyone, every group at some point in time has taken water and boiled it to make it safe.

SPEAKER_03 34:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

And has put stuff in it because it either tasted good or made them feel great.

SPEAKER_04 34:11

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

We are all aligned or I don't want to say addicted because I don't like that word, but we are all grooven with some magic water. And that's what coffee is, that's what tea is. Yeah. And whatever your whatever your jam is, whatever your whatever works for you, I say do it. I I we do business with like 2,500 coffee shops. Okay. I personally have to be very careful with coffee.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

There's just a lot of caffeine in it, man. And I just get wild, I don't eat a lot. Right. And it just wires me up. Nobody needs this wired up on coffee. Nobody. Nobody. But the tea is my jam. It's awesome. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, so tea has its own romance or its own resonance.

SPEAKER_03 35:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

We just gotta find that for what everybody has.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

It's calming for me.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yeah. Yeah. It's calming, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Yeah. And that projects the energy inside of us.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Sure. And it's funny because you know, you you came to my office last week and you brought the chai with you. And I thought, okay. We make over 10 million cups of chai at the factory. You would think that I would make chai at home. I don't. I don't make chai at home. I have all this fancy tea from all over the world, right?

unknown 35:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Just all of this great tea. And so that's what I drank. And I thought to myself, seriously? Why don't you just make some chai at home? I haven't done it yet. Well. Because we because we had our moment, right? But I'm thinking about it. And I I think this weekend, uh, because I think you came on Friday. Thursday, Thursday. Thursday, right? And uh, so it's not been even quite a week. And we had other things going on this weekend. But I think this weekend I'm gonna go get like the grater and the ginger and put it all together.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

Perhaps it'll remind you of uh that time at the Tucson Farmers Market.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

No, well, that was different, but yeah, this is gonna be better because I have access to more stuff now.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

Well, Manish, let's wrap this up. This has been an amazing recording. Thank you for sharing and being vulnerable. This time just flew by. And same. I agree. Bring it home. Uh, for the audience, is there anything that I missed that you'd like to share on the podcast today?

Returning To The Self You Started With

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Uh we we talked about uh the spiritual side of things, right? I'm just putting this out there. Everybody gets to choose to agree or disagree, don't send me notes. I don't you sort it out.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

I believe when we arrive at birth, we are for the most part. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

And then the world starts throwing stuff on. Expectations and habits and col they throw all this stuff on. Right?

SPEAKER_01 37:03

And our job, our purpose in life, as I see it, is to unwind all of that.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

To find that perfect place that we started off in, right? Yes. And in the process of unwinding all of that, you figure out what your superpowers are anyway. And so you don't just wind up back at perfection or where you started, you wind up back there knowing a few things better than when you started. And we all have that opportunity to be involved with the undoing the undoing of things to find the perfection that exists within each of us.

SPEAKER_03 38:09

Beautifully stated. Manish, thank you for coming on. Thank you for coming on the Yoga Nation Spirit of Crater team.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Thank you for giving me this opportunity. This was really, really fun. Same. All right.

SPEAKER_03 38:20

I wish you well and best of luck.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, you bet. Thank you guys.