Gurudath Kamath is a life growth coach, speaker, author, and entrepreneur who is very abled and passionate in everything he does. Although he had a troubled past and hard childhood, Gurudath Kamath grew up to be extremely hard-working and spiritual.
In conversation with Icy Tales, Gurudath Kamath spoke about the hurdles in his journey, stress management, and his take on ways to get out of demotivation.
Q) Tell us about your journey to becoming a life growth coach
Gurudath Kamath: I come from this place called Mangalore in southern Karnataka, and I was born and brought up in a very poor middle-class family. My childhood had a lot of challenges because my parents didn’t have a good relationship, and they got divorced when I was quite young.
After this, my mother left for Kuwait as she got a job, and my father had some drinking problems. So I didn’t have anyone to guide me and tell me what was right and wrong. I was a very psych and introverted kid who never liked to study but always loved sports and liked staying outdoors.
So after my college, I came to Bangalore to do my MBA. I did this because all my friends went to Bangalore and did an MBA, so I did the same. I didn’t have a goal or anything.
But once I came to Bangalore, my life completely changed. I gave up on sports and became lazy, stressed, and lethargic. I got easily influenced by much unproductive stuff like partying, drinking, and smoking, and my lifestyle completely changed.
It was a tough lending road & after getting a job, I could not deliver on my promises, so I had to leave my job six months later. After that, I started my business but became bankrupt after almost a year.
A family friend of mine who knew what I was going through, called me at her home. She was from a well-to-do wealthy household. When I entered the house, I saw a huge wall of books like a library inside the house. I was amazed to see so many books, and I thought, who would ever read so many books?
She came and gave me two books. One was ‘Synchrodestiny‘ by Deepak Chopra, and the second book was ‘The Secret‘ by Rhonda Byrne. When she gave me these books, she told me that I’d get answers to what was happening in my life and understand my life better. That was the turning point in my life and my first step into personal development, self-help, love, and attraction.
I didn’t know about all of these things before that because nobody – neither in school or college talked about all these things. So it was reading these books that gave me a different idea about life, about how thoughts and habits are important and how one can attract good things in life.
I was living in an Ashram for some time, doing a lot of meditation, which gave me a lot of purpose in my life. That one year was challenging, but I learned a lot of new things. That is when I decided that I wanted to improve my life, and I also wanted to help people improve their life. That is when my journey began into personal and inner self-transformation.
Q) Tell us about your writing journey
Gurudath Kamath: Once I got into spirituality, my thoughts started to change, and I started connecting with high energy; we all have that connection within ourselves with God. I always believe that God is not outside, rather we need to find him within ourselves.
So I started digging a little deeper into myself to find my true self, and when I got answers, I started documenting them. Randomly whatever learnings that I used to get from my experiences, I started writing and applying it in my life. And eventually, I wrote a book but didn’t know when to publish it.
Once I became certified as a life coach, I decided it was the right time to release the book because I could give it out to people interested to learn about things that have helped me improve my life. It’s an amazing book called “The Inner Guru.”
It’s finding the deeper self and knowing yourself on a much personal level. It’s like a workbook with assignments at the end of every chapter. It’s like there is space in the book to write and learn, which makes it a good workbook.
We can read the chapters and find answers because every human being is different. There’s no single solution for anybody. Everybody has different experiences and upbringings; everyone is unique, and their answers will also be unique and special.
Q) What do you have to say about stress management?
Gurudath Kamath: We first need to understand stress. We are not born with stress; there is no stress or trauma in the outside world. Everything is inside us because we are the creators of tension. Stress happens when the body and mind are not together. Your mind is either too much in the past or too much in the future, creating that tension.
So how do you bring that focus back? Life has become so stressful because of jobs and other responsibilities. As parents, we put so much responsibility, pressures, and expectations on our children for their exams, education or studies. That’s the reason why children go through a lot of stress as they are not able to meet up to their expectations.
So how do you manage stress? It’s very simple, and we need to learn to return to our roots. If I have to take a tree, the strongest part of the tree is the roots. If I have to grow a tree, we put the water and fertilizers on the roots, right? Only then a tree grows.
The same applies to our lives. In our lives, our trees can be our career, money, relationships, and the outside world. But what supports that inside world is our life which is our roots. Life is made up of different energies like physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy. If you take care of these energies and strengthen your roots, your tree will automatically grow.
The problem is we are too focused on the outside world. We keep blaming and complaining about things outside rather than working on ourselves. We feel the problem is in our job, but the problem is the relationship we think.
We can’t control everything, but we can control how we respond. Once you understand the answers within yourself and learn to develop simple practices like exercising, meditation, visualization, affirmations, and journaling, these very simple techniques, life becomes very simple.
Q How do you deal with times when you get demotivated?
Gurudath Kamath: Everybody feels demotivated and stressed no matter who they are. But the only thing that differentiates unsuccessful and successful people is a skill called resilience. Resilience refers to how quickly one can come out of negative situations.
When a negative situation happens, we get into victim mode and blame ourselves for everything happening around us. I was in this victim mode in my early twenties, but then I realized that to change your life, you must change the quality of your conscience. And that is what I explained very clearly in my book.
To change your life, you must change your conscience’s quality. People are looking for answers, but I don’t look for answers. Ask yourself the right question, and the answers will automatically come. We need to start asking empowering questions to ourselves.
When you put responsibilities on yourself, you will find a way to do things right. So whenever you get stressed, ask yourself how to get out of it. Once you start asking these questions, you will be focused on finding a solution. Switch your mind from the victim mode and have a positive mindset.
Q) What advice do you give people regarding a positive mindset towards life?
Gurudath Kamath: You can’t be positive all the time. It’s okay to be positive and experience the negative; emotions are not bad. Negative times are our teachers, and they’re just trying to help us. One of my spiritual gurus, Shankar Guruji, says that good and bad are not the opposite; they are complementary.
Imagine there was only happiness and no sadness in this world. How would you know what sadness feels like? Only because there is sadness do we know what is happiness, right? Anxiety is just an indication and signal that you’re supposed to do something in your life. It’s teaching you that you’re supposed to improve your life.
Anger and frustration are just trying to make you a better person. Even if you’re feeling negative, learn from it. Ask yourself why you are feeling anxious and find out the root of it. Once we sit and analyze ourselves, we will understand that everything that happens in life is for good.
Take care of your health and roots, and don’t compromise your physical, mental, and emotional health. That should be your topmost priority. Don’t compromise it for anything or anybody.
Gurudath Kamath has helped more than 20,000 people to get better in life and aims to help more people to get a positive idea about life. He is an advocate of spirituality and is the torch-bearer of its benefits.
Check out the whole conversation with Gurudath Kamath on our YouTube Channel.
Last Updated on by Sathi
