Author: Giridhari Das

Life is no walk in the park. And what bothers us the most is experiencing negative emotions, such as sadness, shame and frustration. It hurts, doesn’t it? So, how to deal with it? Here we’ll see a practical and efficient technique, with scientific confirmation, to minimize this pain.

We have two ways to deal with negative emotions. The first I emphasize in my videos and my book, “The 3T Path” (https://3tentesting108.com/books/): change how you deal with life, change your focus and more and more you won’t even have a reason to become hurt. This requires a profound change in how you go about your life, which I call a paradigm change – a change from the fantasy paradigm to the reality paradigm. To understand how to do this requires dedication and is better understood by reading the book. The second way is to know how to deal with the negative emotion when it comes up. This is what we’ll explain here.

Joan Rosenberg, PhD, a researcher in the field of psychology, created a system to solve this problem, which I’ll summarize here.

What are negative emotions? She proposes we have eight which dominate our lives: 1) sadness, 2) shame, 3) helplessness, 4) anger, 5) vulnerability, 6) embarrassment, 7) disappointment and 8) frustration.

Pretty bad, huh? Or not? Here’s a interesting point: why do we consider these negative emotions to be bad? Is the emotion itself bad, or is the feeling you get that is bad? Emotions are just that, emotions. They’re a thought. Something that only exists in your head. So, what’s bad about these negative emotions? The physiological reactions they generate! We don’t usually stop and think about this, but here’s a great insight: what’s unpleasant is the physical sensation generated by the negative emotion. What bothers us is the chemical changes and the changes in our digestive, respiratory and cardiological systems.

The first step Dr. Rosenberg recommends is the same I emphasize in the 3T Path: mindfulness. Be present. Don’t be afraid of the negative emotion. Don’t try to mentally run away from it. Stay there, ride it out, fully conscious of it, fully present. Don’t be a victim of the situation, be an observer.

In many cases, from the negative emotion you’ll take strength and learning to rise to new heights. Many people testify that negative emotions, traumatic situations, were the trigger for their greatest achievements. The famous self-help guru, Tony Robbins, often cites his abusive alcoholic mother as an essential force that drove him to dedicate himself to helping others and attain fantastic success and satisfaction. Victims of crimes and other forms of abuse use their trauma to build systems to protect and help others from the same violence, making the world a better place. In psychology, the term used for this is “post-traumatic growth”. Here’s a video I did on this topic a while back:

The second step is waiting 90 seconds. What? Yes, that’s right! It takes approximately 90 seconds for the physiological reactions to run their course. You don’t need so much patience or self-control. It’s only 90 seconds. Why not just repeat in your head the Hare Krishna mantra while you wait, asking Krishna to help quickly absorb the lesson to be taken from the experience? Breathe deep, relax and observe. Soon the whole experience blows off. Life goes on. Everything is fine.

Try it out yourself. The next time you feel a negative emotion rising, don’t back down, don’t cower away from it, and don’t get stressed. Stay present. Observe the physiological reactions. Wait 90 seconds, and watch your body return to its normal state. Reestablish your balance.

Now bring your focus to the solution, in the form of a constructive reaction to the situation aligned with your dharma, in divine consciousness. Learn from the situation. Create the habit of always getting something good from unpleasant things that happens to you. Immediately after a bad experience, seek out ways in which that will make you wiser, stronger and more focused.  Use the negative energy to propel you to become greater.

Watch my video on this topic here.

Yours,

Giridhari Das

Look what they’re saying about The 3T Path book: “This book is incredible! It really changed my life and will change yours too.”

There are two important terms in the path of yoga: dharma and karma. Many times I’m asked: “What’s the relationship between these two terms?” Here I’ll explain in simple terms the meaning of each, how they are connected and why this knowledge will help you live better.

Karma in Sanskrit means “action.” The law of karma is thus the law of action. Beyond the Newtonian law of action and reaction governing the physical world, the law of action and reaction also affects the experience of embodied souls. Karma should be understood as one of the laws of nature, acting on the metaphysical plane.

Dharma is a rich concept, and the word has many meanings, but my focus will be on dharma as that which needs to be done – essence and duty. Duty can be imposed; essence cannot. Dharma is thus that duty born of who you truly are, of your nature. It’s not an external or social imposition. It’s what you need to do at any given moment to be the best person you can be. It’s doing the right thing at the right time. Being dharmic is more than just doing good or avoiding hurtful or violent behavior, though that is certainly included in the concept, and it can’t be boiled down to a list of don’ts or things to be avoided. Dharma is fluid and alive and sensitive to different aspects of your life. Major changes to your dharma can occur from one second to the next. One way to understand dharma is to rephrase the classic line: “Don’t ask what the world can do for you, but ask what you can do for the world.”

The law of karma is an educational system built into nature, designed to help the embodied soul improve its moral, or dharmic, behavior. Every action you perform has a moral quality to it. Was it the right action? Was it within your dharma to be doing it? If so, did you do it with attention, with care? Did you do your best? If so, then you generated an appropriately positive result. If not, then you get an appropriately negative result. The law of karma puts a mirror in front of you. You get what you give. Or as the Bible says, you reap what you sow.

The reactions produced from our actions come in the form of objects, facts, and situations in life. Everything in your life now – your DNA to your social status, bank account, job situation, neighborhood, planet, health, and everything you own – is the result of your past activities. At every moment, the entire configuration of external reality in your life is a karmic reaction. The only exception is divine intervention. The more you develop your spirituality, and especially your devotion to God, the more your karma may be adjusted by God to suit your spiritual elevation. It’s like getting a presidential or royal pardon. You were tried and found guilty, but the ruling power of the country pardons your crime. Or to give an even better example, if you become a star pupil, then the school may take special interest in your education and adjust your syllabus to help you develop your full capabilities.

Thus, dharma shows you what should be done. Karma, in the sense of the Law of Karma, is the reaction you get according to how “dharmic” your action was. The closer to your dharma, the better the material reaction, the better will be the karma you accumulate. The further from your dharma, the worse the reaction, the worse will be the karma you accumulate.

A yogi, however, doesn’t want any kind of karma. Karma keeps us bound to birth and death, stuck in the material world. Yoga, in its primary application, is a technique for overcoming and eliminating your karma, once and for all, and with that attaining liberation.

So, the yogi will follow his or her dharma, but now as offering to God, with no desire for future reward. This technique is the basis of Krishna’s teachings to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita and is called karma-yoga. There are three key aspects to transform a mundane action into a transcendental action in karma-yoga: 1) be in harmony with your dharma, 2) do the action as offering to God, for His ultimate satisfaction and 3) be in the here and now, without desiring future results from your action. With this you won’t accumulate any karma in the act and gradually you’ll become liberated from material existence.

In the book The 3T Path – Self-improvement and Self-realization in Yoga, available here: https://3tentesting108.com/books/, you’ll get a much more in depth understanding of dharma, karma, God and how to put it all together in the practice of karma-yoga.

Watch my video on this topic here.

Yours,

Giridhari Das

Look what they’re saying about The 3T Path book: “Excellent roadmap for the Bhakti path. This book has a neat and clear step-by-step process for one to engage in authentic Bhakti Yoga. The practical, organized, and simplified format was a welcome contrast to some books which are too complex for beginners.” – Billy Kubina Jr.

Do you hate your job? A lot of people do. So, what can you do about it? Here I’ll present a two-step approach to shedding some light on resolving this important problem.

According to research published on Forbes Magazine, an astounding 70% of people hate their jobs. That’s nuts. There’s something seriously wrong with this picture and it has a to do with how we relate to our work, not the work itself. Like I say, it’s the how, not the what, that really matters in almost every situation.

First Step: Adjust Your Mindset

How to adjust your mindset in relation to your work? Two key words to keep in mind: meaning and impact.

First, try to find meaning in your work. What about your work allows you to express your nature, or to use the language of yoga and the 3T Path, your dharma? How is your work helping you be your true self? What natural inclinations and inner motivations are you realizing through your work? Try to see in what way your work is connected to who you are and how doing your work allows you to express a part, hopefully a significant part, of your nature. In the book The 3T Path – Self-improvement and Self-realization in Yoga, available here: https://3tentesting108.com/books/, you’ll find a whole section on understanding your purpose and your dharma which is sure to help you in this regard.

Another way to look at this is to analyze what positive impact your work has in the world. The more specific you can be, the better. Research shows that when you focus on the individual persons you’re helping, to the point of seeing their faces, that’s the most effective way to find meaning in your work.

Maybe you sell sofas. It’s great coming home from work and relaxing on a sofa. People need sofas. Instead of focusing on the status and financial benefits of selling sofas, focus on the pleasure and satisfaction people will have in coming home to a sofa you’ve sold.

Maybe you’re a street sweeper. We definitely need clean streets. Keeping streets clean has a huge impact on the well-being of every citizen. A street sweeper has an important job with significant positive impact on the lives of thousands and thousands of people.

Even if you work in a big company, and you’re feeling like you’re just a little cog in a big machine, you can still see the value of your work. Machines fall apart if its parts don’t work. A clock won’t work without all its cogs in place. Find the value of your action in the overall effect the company has on other people, and find the value your work directly has on well-being of your colleagues, in helping them do their work.

Lastly, you may be holding a job just to pay your bills while you finish college or wait for your big break in the music and film industry. In this case, focus on the importance of that job in giving you this opportunity to reach the expression of your deeper nature, your true vocation. Be grateful and value that job for being a bridge or a facilitator of your true nature.

Second Step: Rethink Your Life

If you’ve seriously considered all the above and still cannot find meaning or satisfaction in your work, then it’s time for a serious rethink of your life. What the heck happened? How did things go so wrong that you ended up in this situation? Because it’s crazy to spend the largest part of your day in something that does not express your essence and in which you cannot find any meaning. Why are you busy doing something that is not having a positive impact on others?

Living like this will suck the energy and joy from your life. It’s an offense to yourself. You have to come up with an exit plan. Maybe you have to go back to college, maybe you have to downsize seriously or move to another city or country. It’s going to take courage and it’s going to hurt, but it’ll be well worth it. It’s like pulling a decayed tooth out. It hurts, but there is no question of leaving it in.

Watch my video on this topic here.

Yours,

Giridhari Das

Look what they’re saying about The 3T Path book: “The 3T Path is a must read. Just by reading it, your life will become better and happier!” –  David Roberts (Mahavira Das), Senior Vice President – Bixolon/Samsung

Aside from the pathologically confident types, we all second-guess to some degree. But you might be suffering from second guessing too much, to the point that you feel your life is going nowhere, you’re limiting your actions and tripping over your tongue.  Here I’ll suggest ways to understand and overcome this situation.

Second guessing is defined as questioning a decision or action already taken. Only a twisted person would never question his or her decisions and actions. In trying to become a better person, the very first step is to practice self-observation and critical thinking. We must certainly question our current way of life, our habits, our goals in order to make sure they’re really the best we can do, the most aligned with our essence and the most beneficial overall. So, to some degree, second guessing yourself is healthy and highly desired.

However, too much second guessing will make your life miserable. You can second guess yourself to the point of near paralysis, and complete lack of self-confidence.  You can get so worried about what you say, that you end up not saying what you want, or even need to say. You can be so unsure of your decisions that you end up not making any serious decisions and thus blocking your chances of really living your life.

If this is your case or if you just feel you’re overly concerned about what you say and do, here are some pointers that may help you out:

1. Dharma: take the time to learn who you are. Dharma means essence and duty. Dharma is the action that is born out a part of who you are. Dharma means living out your purpose, in the different aspects of your being: vocational, personal, relationships, community, spiritual, etc. In the book, “The 3T Path” (https://3tentesting108.com/books/), I explain in detail how you can understand your dharma and why this is so important for your well-being. Once you understand your dharma, you’ll always know what you should do. It’ll be as clear to you as driving down a highway.
2. Do you best. Cultivate the mood of wanting to do your best, because that defines the quality of your life. If you go through life acting below your potential, you’ll naturally feel frustrated and disappointed. It’s not about the results or the trophies you collect. It’s about knowing you did your best. You don’t need to listen to other people’s opinion or be overly concerned with other kinds of feedback. You know the difference. You know very well when you were acting in the sincere desire to do good, to do your best as opposed to when you’re acting with selfishness and a negative or destructive mindset.
3. Yes, you’ll make mistakes. Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita that every action has mistakes, just as every fire has smoke. So, don’t be hard on yourself, and PLEASE, don’t expect perfection, ever. Accept this fact and you can loosen up a lot.
4. Don’t focus on the result. This is a key element in general. Focus on the action, on the here and now. Bring your mind to just doing your best, according to your dharma, here and now.
5. If you’ve activated your bhakti, your loving connection to God, cultivate the spirit of doing everything as an offering to God. This will help take the excessive attention from yourself and what other’s think of you.
6. Let life flow. Learn to feel the flow of life. Life is happening and pieces are moving, way beyond your control or input. Feel that and flow with it. By doing your dharma, and doing it as well as you can, your contribution is already valuable, no matter what other’s think or what impact you think you’re having on the world.

By learning to be yourself and to be in touch with your purpose, you’ll naturally become free of the excessive worry of what other’s think about what you say and do. Being focused on your true self naturally gives you confidence and freedom from fear.

Watch my video on this topic here.

 

Look what they’re saying about The 3T Path book: “I’m Reading The 3T Path and it’s a balm to the soul. Simple, direct language, yet soft, like a refreshing summer breeze in the evening. I recommend the reading and the experience, I’m loving it!” – Catarina Bezerra

Life is a sea of troubles and naturally the wise person seeks to end all suffering. That state of zero suffering is called nirvana in Eastern Buddhist and yoga traditions. But what happens then? Unknown to most, the focus of the Krishna yoga tradition is to go beyond nirvana. Here I’ll explain this fascinating concept.

Nirvana means “blowing out,” extinguishing anything that was causing a disturbance in your consciousness, ending all suffering. Sure, sign me up for it! Every sane person should seek this. No combination of material things, people and situations will ever bring you peace and joy. We’re hounded by problems, always. And then we die. A real bummer. So, the smart move is to seek a solution beyond matter, beyond merely adjusting external things in your life. This is the starting point of your spiritual quest.

Anyone who takes their spiritual lives seriously experiences amazing results. It really works, and it’s been working since forever. And it works everywhere. There are many different paths, but, in the beginning, the similarities abound and the results are the same. Awed by these results, few practitioners question what, if anything, is to happen after all troubles have ceased.

Yoga tradition, specifically the Krishna-bhakti tradition, much older than Buddhism and certainly much older than the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, spoke of a goal beyond Nirvana, and gave details of it, too.

And the issue is not just academic. It has real life implications, right here and now. Knowing better what the end-game is, allows you to understand better the path to spiritual success and to make more sense of life.

The core issue is understanding your real nature. Who are you, really? Beyond all the mistakes, beyond illusion, beyond death itself… who are you? In fact, what is the nature of the underlying spiritual reality?

Krishna teaches that we are eternal persons. You can see how your entire existence is personal. And it’s not all a big mistake. Sure, you become emotionally hurt, and your hurt others emotionally, but the solution does not lie and giving up emotions completely. What would that even entail? No joy, no love, no personal interaction? Yikes!

Some spiritual paths propose this annihilation of your personal and individual existence. They claim your entire concept of self is misguided. You don’t exist, they say. You’re just energy. And so is God, who also doesn’t really exist. Only existence exists, you just are. And everything else is a giant mistake. You are only a mind flux, brahman, light… the terms vary, the concept is the same. In the end, you’ll merge into the sum total of existence. No more troubles!

But also no more anything! Hold your horses! This is the biggest case ever of throwing away the baby with the bathwater. Life isn’t that bad. Certainly, we can salvage the good stuff.

In the yoga tradition, the end goal is to purify your personal and individual existence, not erase it. After all, thinking and feeling are not the problem. Dancing, eating, painting, talking, swimming and kissing are not the problem. It’s doing those things in the wrong mentality, and even worse, stuck in a decaying material body, that’s the problem. So, yoga proposes we clean up our act, learning to (again) be pure loving persons, free from the constraints of a dying body and dead matter as a background for our activities.

By giving up hurtful behavior, such as desiring external outcomes, instead of focusing on acting according to your best nature right here and now, and being selfish instead of loving, we gain an increasingly better experience of life even before nirvana. By understanding that the problem is not having emotions and thoughts, but the quality of them, we can embrace the best of life as we progress towards spiritual perfection.

Better yet, by understanding our eternal personal nature, we can understand the root cause of all existence also must have a personal nature. Thus, we come to understand the personal nature and transcendental form of God, and the infinitely loving relationship that we can derive from that.

Beyond nirvana is prema – beautiful spiritual love, centered on but not exclusive to the supreme person, God. This is why yoga values bhakti (devotion) as the highest and most powerful practice of yoga, and why there is such great bliss to be experienced right now by activating bhakti.

In the book “The 3T Path” (https://3tentesting108.com/books/) there is a thorough explanation of bhakti, prema and the personal concept of God, as well as a brief presentation of Krishna, to explain what lies beyond nirvana and how this affects your life here and now.

Watch my video on this topic here.

Look what they’re saying about The 3T Path book: “I loved the book. A wonderful experience!!!” – Elton Orvate

Research shows your mind ranges from two mental extremes, which give you a radically different experience in terms of well-being and behavior. Here I’ll present these two extremes and suggest how to use this knowledge to improve your life.

One mental extreme is what is known as your defensive state. This is your animal brain having fully taken over command of your thinking and actions. Adrenaline is coursing through your veins. Heart-rate and blood pressure are up. Your amygdala is running the show and, because of that, it has bypassed your cortex, the part of your brain that does rational thinking. At the highest levels of defensiveness, you basically become a beast, scared and angry. I call this our dragon state. This may sound exciting, but it’s very unpleasant.

This state of mind is useful to save your life in situations of real imminent danger. The milliseconds your cortex needs to think about things could get you killed, so the amygdala takes over. If you’re running away from a flood or trying to survive an attack by a vicious animal, this is great. Not so great, however, if you’re just trying to deal with family and coworkers, traffic or something else equally non-life-threatening.

The other extreme is exploratory. In this mode, you’re engaged in something that greatly interests you. You’re absorbed in doing, studying and experiencing something to such a degree, your whole self is one with the here and now. In its purest form, this is known as the state of flow, where decisions and thoughts occur with lightning speed, with apparently no deliberation. The sensation experienced is one of joy, intense vitality and connection. I call this the angel state, where you’re more than a mere human. In this state, you’re operating at your very best, flowing with life and expressing your inner self brilliantly.

We’re very sensitive. Any perceived threat pushes us towards the dragon state. Even seeing someone’s grumpy face from a distance moves you towards defensiveness, even if the person is not looking at you. Thoughts are processed as reality by your brain. Feeling anxious about future events, fear of unpleasant outcomes or even reliving a bad experience are interpreted by your brain as actual events in the here and now, and thus trigger you towards your dragon state. You can see why we spend so much of our lives in a bad mood. We’re freaking ourselves out, though subtly, often unconsciously, all the time. And if we let our emotions take control, then we can go all out dragon in a fit of rage, over the silliest things, such as bickering over the choice of a restaurant with our spouses or in dealing with your teenager’s latest test of your limits.

Knowing this constant shifting of the mind, between dragon and angel, we can begin to assume control of our life experience. Here are three practical steps to achieve this:

• Engage constantly in self-observation. Be aware of your mind. Practice mindfulness of your own state of being and of your emotions. Be aware of your thoughts. This is a key habit to develop to live a better life and one that’s increasingly more emphasized by psychologists and gurus alike.
• Pacify your mind. As soon as you feel yourself uselessly drifting towards your dragon state, in anxiety of some future result, in lamentation of an unhappy memory, stop the downward slide. Do this by breathing deeply and calmly and bringing your mind to the here and now. Return to reality at hand, right now. Not the version of reality full of doubts and uncertainties your mind is freaking you out with, but with reality in the moment, happening around you. In short, practice mindfulness. If things are getting really agitated, then you’re entering the dangerous level of having your amygdala take over – full dragon mode. You have to take immediate action while you still have a little control of your cortex. The amygdala will shut down in response to slow steady breathing and the relaxing of the muscles and your mind will move towards your angel state again. Be aware and stop the dragon from rising before it’s too late. Check out this video on anger to understand better this process.
• Seek out your angel state. Do this by finding joy and meaning in everything you do. This is possible by becoming attuned to your dharma, your essence, and putting that into action. When you’re focused on living who you really are, you are taking your mind to the angel state. The more you can focus on living your essence, the closer you approach the perfection of the angel state. Full focus means being in the zone, blissfully absorbed in life.

In the book “The 3T Path” (https://3tentesting108.com/books/) I explain in much greater detail how to practice mindfulness and how to live and understand your dharma.

Watch my video on this topic here.

Look what they’re saying about The 3T Path book: “The 3T Pat is a book that connects yoga wisdom with your day-to-day, with practical tools and examples of how to keep your mind healthy, focused on the here and now.” – Taila Roncon

Have you noticed a marked difference between doing something because you want and feeling like you’re being forced to do it? It’s not just your imagination. There’s something very real going on that you should understand. Find out here what it is and why being true to yourself feels so good.

One of two things can happen: either you’re doing something because you really want to do it or you’re doing it because something or someone is forcing you to do it. In the language of psychology, it’s called intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation means the action is coming from you. You embrace it, you understand it and you want to do it to fulfill your goals. Feels good before, during and after you do it. In “The 3T Path” book I explain this in terms of living your dharma. When you’re living your dharma, you’re living your essence. Dharma is your essence in action.

Extrinsic motivation means that you’re being driven to do something for external reasons. Maybe it is your idea, but you’re doing it for money, or you’re doing it to fit in socially. Maybe you’ve got a job – you asked for the job, you need the job – but you have no joy in it and you’re just there to get the paycheck. So, you work, but your motivation is totally extrinsic. Not a happy place to be, right?

The experience is so different because, neuroscience shows, these two processes act on a different part of the brain! Two people can be doing the same thing, but different parts of their brain are more activated, because one is doing the thing intrinsically motivated and the other extrinsically motivated. This is serious stuff. When we’re doing something intrinsically motivated we’re being true to ourselves. It’s you really being you. That’s why it feels so good. This is how you want to live.

So, what can we do about this? First, be mindful and self-observant. Observe yourself and your feelings at all times. Be aware of how you’re feeling. Are you doing something you want to do, that you find meaning in doing, or not? If not, why aren’t you being true to yourself?

If you’re not doing something you want to do, something that’s intrinsically motivated, then you can do one of two things:

1. Adjust your attitude. Look deep for meaning in what you’re doing. Find the intrinsic motivation in your work, exercise routines and relationships. See in what way what you’re doing right now is actually important in fulfilling your goals and in being who you are.
2. Do something else. If you just can’t find meaning in what you’re doing, you have to change it. Don’t settle for living a life that’s not yours. Don’t sell you soul and have a job you hate, just for the money. Don’t be in a relationship that’s not for you, just because you think you have to or because you’re worried about the opinion of others. Sure, you can’t just quit your job, you have bills to pay, etc. But you certainly can seek to adjust things. Move towards a more meaningful life, career and relationships, towards being your true self.

Being true to yourself feels so much better and it’s physiologically a different experience. This is the basis of a good life. Every effort you put into making this happen is well worth it.

Here’s my video on this topic.

 

Check out what they are saying about my book, “The 3T Path”: “This impressive book from Giridhari Das makes it clear why he is a spiritual internet star. This systematic, eloquent book provides valuable guidance for those seeking serious spiritual progress.” – Hridayananda Das Goswami

Getting your book published is a step-by-step process. Yes, there are pitfalls, but basically, if you have enough brains to write a book, you can do it. But selling your book, in order words, having anyone actually read it, that’s the really tricky part.

In my earlier blog post, I laid out the step-by-step process I used to get my book published. Worthy of note is the fact that I’m a Brazilian citizen, living in Brazil, which added another layer of complication, but with the help of the folks I mention there, everything happened very smoothly.

Figures vary, but estimates are that some 4000 books get published every day in English. Think about that. Your book is going to be another drop in that vast ocean of books published. Getting noticed, you can see, is no easy feat.

In Brazil, I already have a nice following. I’ve been publishing books here for over 10 years. I have thousands of followers. My YouTube channel for Portuguese speakers just hit 1 million views, with over 1000 new subscribers every month. When I published my “3T Path” book here, in Portuguese, all I had to do was post it on Facebook and send out emails. I do a lecture and dozens of books get sold. Here in my Yoga Resort, the book is always selling. Smooth and stress-free.

In October of 2016, I decided to expand my work to the English-speaking world. Starting with zero. Nada. From scratch. I set up this website, Instagram account, YouTube channel, Twitter and Facebook page. And I started doing my stuff, in English. Videos, blog posts and quotes for Instagram. And I wrote the book “The 3T Path” for those interested in really changing their lives with what I had to offer.

I thus knew that publishing my book in English, if I did nothing more, would result in practically no sales, since I didn’t have a US or UK base yet. I figured I would literally sell 2 or 3 books a month for a good time to come.

So, going against my wife’s suggestion, I sought out professional support to prime the pump. I started looking around for book marketing professionals. In the end, I hired Penny Sansevieri and her Author Marketing Experts (AME) company.

Penny looked like the real deal. She’s been around enough and she sells lots of books on the topic of selling books, including one called, “How To Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon”. Great, I thought! That’s what I want to do! So, I contacted her.

We had a very nice first contact. Both by email and by phone I made it clear that I had zero presence in the US or UK so that I didn’t have any fan base to draw upon to sell books in English. I told her on the phone that I didn’t mind making zero profit. I just didn’t want to lose money.

She offered me a package of services, and I even opted for the extra stuff. It came out to a couple of thousand dollars per month, for 3 months straight.

If I had to sum up Penny’s work it would be: “the surgery was a success but the patient died”. Her staff make a really nice looking list of things they tried to do, blogs and media they contacted, this and that strategy, doing a Goodreads giveaway, getting reviews, etc. What actually came through was a tiny fraction of what they supposedly tried to do. And what resulted from that tiny fraction, was pretty much zero sales.

Call me nuts, but I believe that marketing investment has to bring you at least that amount back. Since getting my message out is more important to me than money, I’m not worried about making a profit. But, since I don’t have a trust fund and since I never ask for donations from my students, I also can’t just throw money away.

The lady sells a book titled “how to sell truckloads of books”, but her and her staff, working for 3 months, couldn’t even sell a satchel full of books. Ouch! Biggest case of buyer’s remorse in my entire life. And I’m almost 50 years old! Half a century buying things and hiring services, and Penny takes the gold medal for my biggest case of buyer’s remorse. Quite an achievement.

I don’t think I got 2%, yes, that’s right not TWO PERCENT, of my marketing investment back. In technical terms a ROI of -98%. Harsh.

Did I get great personal advice from Penny for my investment? Nope. After the first talk to seal the deal, that was it. No more Penny. When I noticed the campaign was a disaster and made a fuss, she answered my email, but basically telling me to chillax and that it was normal for there not to be results right away. Nice. Wish you told me that before I parted with my hard-earned money, Penny.

So, my conclusion is that book marketing is GREAT…. for the book marketers. Maybe not so much for the clients. Great business to be in if your aim is making a buck. Better than being an author, that’s for sure!

Sorry, I’m not going to end this post with a magic recipe for you to sell your books. From what I read, all the advice seems to point in the same direction: you just have to be known and followed. Your followers will buy your book and if they like it, others will buy it and then that becomes a “news-worthy” fact to be noted by bloggers and regular media, and then you’ll get more followers and the cycle continues. This is happening to me in Brazil, organically. To be known, they say, you have to constantly create content and participate in other people’s blog and submit articles and stories left and right. So, that’s partly what I’m doing – always and regularly creating content and slowly people are taking notice.

I was hoping, wrongly I see now, that a professional like Penny would have some shortcuts, would have contacts in the media and experienced targeted advice to help an author take a big step in that direction. It’s not what I got from Penny. Not even close.

But hey, poorer but wiser. If I help other authors avoid similar fates, then I’ll be happy in the knowledge my experience wasn’t for naught.

If you’re an author and had experience with a book marketing professional, make sure to leave your comment below!

Getting your book published looks easy, but it’s really not. I want to share here some tips on how I did it.

First step: editing

Editing is essential. Never, ever, think that you can publish your book without an editor going over it. Doesn’t matter how brilliant you may think you are. You need another set of eyes and a good brain for words to iron out your text. I hired Dr. Carl Herzig, Professor of English, St. Ambrose University. He’s BRILLIANT. He’s a wonderful person, excellent to work with and a great editor. He chopped off 10% of my original text and smoothed over the rest. This is the second time I’ve used him and I can’t see how you could do better than to use him.

Time it took: 6 weeks for the first version (my book is about 50 thousand words). Then another 4 weeks going over it and refining it.

Second step: proofreading

Once the book has been edited and the back and forth between you and the editor finalized, you need to send it off to a proofreader. This person will do a last check to make sure nothing got through. I used for this Vishnu Maya Dasi. She’s was quick and professional and spotted several mistakes. Very fair price too. If you write to me I can give you her contact.

Time it took: 2 weeks.

Third step: layout and cover

I’ve been publishing in Brazil for many, many years, so I have a good relationship with a Brazilian publishing house, today called Coletivo Editorial. These days they have working with them an expert layout and cover person, Narada Muni Das. He did my layout and cover work and I really liked it. Very open, fast and willing to change and redesign that parts you don’t like.

Time it took: one month.

Fourth step: proofreading after the layout is done

Once the layout is done, you need to have it proofread again. This person will make sure all the chapter headings are there, no bits of the book were cut off, the numbering is in order and, plus, catch any mistakes left by the editor and the proofreader. For this, I was lucky to have as a friend, Robson Silva, who’s just amazing. He’s like the Terminator of mistake-finding in his precision and attention for detail. He not only proofread the copy for print, but also the ebook files later on.

Time it took: 2 weeks.

Fith step: ebook formatting and publishing

Once you have the InDesign files for your book and the high-res PDF files for your cover, you’re ready to get published. But, man, not so easy! In Brazil, my publishers take care of everything, but for publishing my book in English, I was on my own. I opted for the self-publishing route, because it gives you so much freedom. The book is yours. And you can do with it as you wish. Being in the hand of a publishing house that’ll just sit on your book and maybe never reprint it, is not attractive to me. Unless you’re a hotshot author (and thus not reading this blog post) you probably will not get a publishing deal, nor should you really try for it. Self-publishing is here to stay.

But self-publishing for the first time is a bit daunting. The devil is in the details. And there are a lot of them. So, I decided to get professional help. I hired the services of David Wogahn, of www.davidwogahn.com. He not only does a first-rate job of producing the ebook version of your book, but he handles everything to get your book published professionally. All the nitty-gritty details.  I really liked having his help. It was a real relief. He writes: “The one thing I’ll say is that it is easy to look at self-publishing as something anyone with technology skills can do. In my experience it begins this way, but much of what clients get out of their relationship with me is experience and wisdom.” I liked his services so much, I’m pretty sure I’ll be asking for his help for my next book, too, even though I now have experience with Amazon, Kindle, etc. He answers all your questions, sets up the accounts, guides you through the whole process and gets your book online, up for sale, properly published.

One cool thing he did for me, was to put my book in Pronoun.com. They’re really great. Excellent interface and they’ll take care of you ebook distribution brilliantly. I highly recommend them.

Time it took: 4 weeks.

I’m so grateful for the help of these people! They were great! But I must also mention my brilliant wife, Charana Renu, who helped me shape the book and did a first round of editing. She gave me great advice every step of the way.

So, that’s it for now. In my next post on book publishing I’ll write about book marketing, where, unfortunately, I was not so lucky. Click here to read it.

Here’s a scientifically-proven technique, that requires no more than 60 seconds of your time a day, that will change your life: the gratitude diary. Here we’ll see what it is, how it’s done, and why it’s so powerful.

The greatest virtue you can express is gratitude. It’s a powerful catalyst for positive change. The spirit of thankfulness blesses you with the ability to see the best of everything and as a consequence fills you with contentment and joy. It’s a powerful tool for making your life better. The power of gratitude is recognized by ancient wisdom and proved by modern science.

Melody Beattie, author of several self-help books, sums it up nicely: “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”

Robert Emmons, PhD, one of the foremost authorities in the study of the effects of gratitude, reports that people who practice gratitude experience benefits in many areas of their life, from mental well-being to physical health to social dealings.

And how do you cultivate gratitude? How do you harness its power? The most efficient and scientifically-tested technique is the use of the gratitude diary, also sometimes referred to as the gratitude journal.

What that entails is simply writing down, preferably once a day, as few as 5 things you’re grateful for in that day. That’s it. Ridiculous, right? It’s so simple. If you’re into the science of it, check out this long list of studies on gratitude found at the US National Library of Medicine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3010965/.

Why does it work? It’s all about the filters you create. In this blog post, I talk about the effect of our mental filters. You don’t live life as it is, you live it as you are.

We filter reality at every moment and those filters are usually created unconsciously. It’s all too easy to drift into a more negative filter, as life brings us challenge after challenge, and the disappointments and frustrations pile up. That means we create a negative filter. A filter which looks out for negative, disappointing and frustrating things. This, in turn, means we do in fact find more of those negative things, deepening our negative sensations. This is all going on below our awareness.

With the gratitude diary, we reprogram our filters. We essentially create a new filter: positivity. We tell our brain to be on the lookout for positive experiences, for the blessings in our life. That makes our brain filter out the negative and leave an imprint of the positive. A new filter is in place. We perceive more and more the good things in our life, most of which were there all along, but we just weren’t giving them notice, preferring instead to focus on the negative. As we perceive more the good things in our life, we naturally become happier, and reinforce our positivity filter, in a virtuous circle. That’s why the gratitude diary is one of the most powerful life-hacks out there.

Here’s my video on this topic:

Check out what they are saying about my book, “The 3T Path”: “Giridhari Das’ The 3T Path expertly bridges ancient yoga traditions and contemporary Western society. Giridhari makes philosophical ideas accessible to both curious beginners and experienced practitioners and gives us clear, practical directions on how we can apply yoga practices and principles to our everyday lives.” – Dr. Carl Herzig, Professor of English, St. Ambrose University