Welcome to our weekly segment, "Three Minute Thursday" where host Pooja Mottl highlights a piece of wisdom she has come across from her own readings, or shares an inspirational anecdote or insight that can help you lead a more calm and rooted life.

In a fast-changing world, news about success runs rampant. It seems society wants to sell us it's own version of success and the fact is, most of us have bought into it.

If you’re connected to the internet, news about people achieving great wealth, respect or fame, grab your attention in the form of posts, tweets, headlines, and alerts. This kind of sensational success is more alluring and seemingly more accessible, than ever before in human history.

From unicorn founders to voyages into space, stories about success mesmerize us and seduce us into wanting it, and the herd mentality justifies this narrative and keeps it alive.

There’s nothing wrong with working hard for financial freedom and recognition from our peers – but what we’ve collectively done as a society…is taken success to a dangerous level in the context of our mental wellbeing.

Dangerous, because when we make the end game all about success – the fortune, the notoriety, the achievements - we make the biggest sacrifice: we give up our peace of mind.

See, when we’re driven by the promise that success will make our lives better, as the news and our culture want us to believe, we stop feeling grateful for what we have right now, a scientifically proven way to make our minds unhappy.

And in the competitive race for success, we feel inadequate until me make it, insignificant if we never do, and unsatisfied when we arrive, because hitting one benchmark only begins the chase for yet another.

To counter these emotions, we numb ourselves with food, with drugs, with shopping, with alcohol, with social media and by the dopamine hit that comes from just the idea that success can happen to me… if I just keep plugging away.

So today I’d like to offer you this advice with love and compassion – I want you to ask yourself: is my definition of success bringing me peace of mind at the end of my day? Does it give me energy or does it take it from me?

Does my definition of success help me sleep well at night? Does it make me the best colleague I can be? The best parent I can be?

These are the questions you must ask yourself to ensure a calm mind, which by the way, is the foundation necessary to unleash the genius within you.

In the coming days, I will be releasing a full length video to expand on the process I use, personally, to define success in a way that brings me inner peace. It has been inspired by the likes of legendary coach John Wooden, the work of essayist and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and the philosophy inherent in the Bhagavad Gita, the storied ancient Indian poem imbibed with time-honored wisdom . It will be both at my YouTube channel and on my social media channels. I truly hope these messages resonate with you and can add real value to your life.

If you want to read more of my essays on living calm and free, please sign up to my newsletter by following me on LinkedIn or signing up to at our new website at calmandfreepodcast.com. Please share this episode with someone you love.

Website: https://www.calmandfreepodcast.com/

For more from Host Pooja Mottl: www.PoojaMottl.com

Podcast Producer: www.Go-ToProductions.com

Twitter: @PoojaMottl

Instagram: @TheCalmandFreePodcast and @PoojaMottl

LinkedIn: @PoojaMottl

Special Thanks :

Kris Kosach of the TPR Podcast for lending her VO for our Podcast Intro.

Jessica Panian for her help with our graphic design.

Sufi Kaur for managing and designing our social graphics.