“I have taken about 280 flights in 2019,” revealed Gaur Gopal Das at The Week’s Health Summit 2024. “It has definitely made me adept at the in-flight safety instructions. I am qualified for the job,” he laughs. He was talking about the guidelines suggesting putting on one’s oxygen mask before helping others. Likewise, one must heal themselves before contributing to the world, he said in his session 'Why Today’s World Needs Healing’.
Talking about workplace pressures translating into performance pressures, he said this toxic cycle impacts health in more ways than one. “Workplace pressure has been taking the better of us and draining us. Healing before performing is important,” he said.
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Giving a practical solution to this unending vicious cycle, he asked the attendees to find a purpose of their lives—why we were born. “There are two most important days in our lives—one on which we are born and one when we find our purpose,” he said.
He was later joined by former diplomat and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor as they further talked about finding their own purpose in lives. Tharoor reminisced his own journey from being a diplomat to turning a new page in life and taking on politics, hence finding his purpose in life, while also mentioning Gaur Gopal Das’ journey from being an engineer to a motivational speaker in his session ‘The Secrets of a Meaningful Life.’
Seconding him, Das also talked about the need to find courage in life and elaborated on the need for intellectual courage, spiritual courage, moral courage, social courage and individual courage.