by Jay Shetty
In the years since, I’ve seen people monetize the weirdest things. Spend any amount of time on Etsy, and you’ll be amazed at how many people have found ways to make money off their passions. However, if the world is sending you a very strong message that it won’t pay for or does not otherwise need or want your passion, then fine. Accept that. There’s a critical need for soccer in the world, but there’s no need for me to play soccer. Still, the soccer matches I organized at Accenture were the highlight of my week. If it’s not your dharma, it can still give you joy.
Quadrant Three: Not Good at, Don’t Love
Do whatever you can to crawl out of this soul-sucking quadrant. You will always have unpleasant chores, but they shouldn’t be the biggest part of your life. If at all possible, you should work toward outsourcing the chores in this category. Hurt the pocket, save the mind. And remember, just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean nobody likes it. Can you work out a trade with a friend or colleague, where you take on each other’s least favorite tasks?
If you can’t offload the chore, remember the lesson I learned at the ashram—every task is an essential organ. None is less important than the others, and none of us is too important to do any chore. If you think you’re too good for something, you succumb to the worst egotistical impulses, and you devalue anyone who does that chore. When you’re satisfied in your dharma, you can, without envy or ego, appreciate others who are good at another skill. I have great respect for people who can do Excel, I just don’t want to do it myself. When I encounter doctors or soldiers or people in any number of other careers, I think, That’s extraordinary. It’s amazing. But it’s not me.
TRY THIS: IDENTIFY YOUR QUADRANT OF POTENTIAL
You may have been doing this exercise in your head as you read about the Quadrants of Potential. Nonetheless, I want you to go through the exercise of acknowledging how close you are to living your dharma today.
Do you like your job?
Do you love your job?
Are you good at your job?
Do other people need and appreciate your work?
Is your greatest skill or passion outside your work?
What is it?
Do you dream of making it your work?
Do you think this is an attainable dream?
Do you think there might be ways you could bring your passion to your work?
Write down any ideas you have for bringing your passion to the universe.
Quadrant Two: Vedic Personality
We want to live in Quadrant Two, where we spend our time using our talents to do what we love. If we aren’t there, we examine the problem the monk way—instead of looking at specific skills you’ve developed and specific activities that you love, we look beyond them, to their roots. The Bhagavad Gita contemplates dharma by dividing us into four personality types—what it calls varnas. There are four varnas, and knowing your varna tells you your nature and competence. In relatively recent history (during the nineteenth century), when British leaders imposed their own rigid class system on Indian society, the varnas emerged as the basis for the caste system. Though castes—a hierarchy of job categories—were based on the varnas, this is a misinterpretation of the text. I’m not talking about the caste system here—I believe that all of us are equal; we just have different talents and skills. My discussion of the varnas is about how to harness these skills and talents to live to your fullest potential. The different personality types are meant to work together in a community, like the organs in a body—all essential and none superior to the others.
Varnas aren’t determined by birth. They’re meant to help us understand our true nature and inclinations. You’re not creative just because your parents are.
No one varna is better than another. We all seek different types of work, fun, love, and service. There is no hierarchy or segregation. If two people are both acting in their best dharma, living for the service of others, then neither is better than the other. Is a cancer researcher better than a fireman?
TRY THIS: THE VEDIC PERSONALITY TEST
This simple test is not an absolute determination of your personality type, but it will help as you seek out your dharma.
See the appendix for The Vedic Personality Test.
THE VARNAS
The four varnas are the Guide, the Leader, the Creator, and the Maker. These labels aren’t directly tied to specific jobs or activities. Sure, certain activities bring us pleasure because they fulfill our dharma, but there are many different ways to live in our dharma. A Guide, as you will see on page 112, is compelled to learn and share knowledge—you could be a teacher or a writer. A Leader likes to influence and provide, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a CEO or a lieutenant—you could be a school principal or shop manager. A Creator likes to make things happen—this could be at a start-up or in a neighborhood association. A Maker likes to see things tangibly being built—they could be a coder or a nurse.
Remember the gunas: tamas, rajas, and sattva—ignorance, impulsivity, and goodness. For each of the varnas I describe what their behavior looks like in each guna mode. We strive toward sattva through letting go of ignorance, working in our passion, and serving in goodness. The more time we spend in sattva, the more effective and fulfilled we become.
Creators
Originally: merchants, businesspeople
Today: marketers, salespeople, entertainers, producers, entrepreneurs, CEOs
Skills: brainstorming, networking, innovating
Make things happen
Can convince themselves and others of anything
Great at sales, negotiation, persuasion
Highly driven by money, pleasure, and success
Very hardworking and determined
Excel in trade, commerce, and banking
Always on the move
Work hard, play hard
Mode of Ignorance
Become corrupt and sell things with no value / Lie, cheat, steal to sell something
Beaten down by failure
Burned out, depressed, moody, due to overwork
Mode of Impulse
Status-driven
Dynamic, charismatic, and captivating
Hustler, goal-oriented, tireless
Mode of Goodness
Use money for greater good
Create products and ideas that make money but also serve others
Provide jobs and opportunities for others
Makers
Originally: artists, musicians, creatives, writers
Today: social workers, therapists, doctors, nurses, COOs, heads of human resources, artists, musicians, engineers, coders, carpenters, cooks
Skills: inventing, supporting, implementing
Mode of Ignorance
Depressed by failure
Feel stuck and unworthy
Anxious
Mode of Impulse
Explore and experiment with new ideas
Juggle too many things at the same time
Lose focus on expertise and care; focus more on money and results
Mode of Goodness
Driven by stability and security
Generally content and satisfied with the status quo
Choose meaningful goals to pursue
Work hard but always maintain balance with family commitments
Best right-hand man or woman
Lead team gatherings
Support those in need
Highly skilled at manual professions
Connections
Makers and Creators complement each other
Makers make Creators focus on detail, quality, gratitude, and contentment
Creators help Makers think bigger, become more goal-oriented
Guides
Originally and today: teachers, guides, gurus, coaches, mentors
Skills: learning, studying, sharing knowledge, and wisdom
A coach and a mentor no matter what role they play
Want to bring out the best in the people in their li
fe
Value knowledge and wisdom more than fame, power, money, security
Like having space and time to reflect and learn
Want to help people find meaning, fulfillment, and purpose
Like to work alone
Enjoy intellectual pursuits in their spare time—reading, debate, discussion
Mode of Ignorance
Don’t practice what they preach
Don’t lead by example
Struggle with implementation
Mode of Impulse
Love to debate and destroy others’ arguments
Use knowledge for strength and power
Intellectually curious
Mode of Goodness
Use knowledge to help people find their purpose
Aspire to better themselves in order to give more
Realize knowledge is not theirs to use alone, but that they are here to serve
Leaders
Originally: kings, warriors
Today: military, justice, law enforcement, politics
Skills: governing, inspiring, engaging others
Natural leaders of people, movements, groups, and families
Directed by courage, strength, and determination
Protect those who are less privileged
Led by higher morals and values and seek to enforce them across the world
Provide structures and frameworks for the growth of people
Like to work in teams
Great at organization, focus, and dedication to a mission
Mode of Ignorance
Give up on change due to corruption and hypocrisy
Develop a negative, pessimistic viewpoint
Lose moral compass in drive for power
Mode of Impulse
Build structures and frameworks for fame and money, not meaning
Use their talents to serve themselves not humanity
Focus on short term goals for themselves
Mode of Goodness
Fight for higher morals, ethics, and values
Inspire people to work together
Build long-term goals to support society
Connections
Guides and Leaders complement each other
Guides give wisdom to Leaders
Leaders give structure to Guides
The point of the varnas is to help you understand yourself so you can focus on your strongest skills and inclinations. Self-awareness gives you more focus. When I look at my Guide tendencies, it makes sense to me that I succeed when I focus on strategy. Creators and Makers are better at implementation, so I’ve surrounded myself with people who can help me with that. A musician might be a Maker, driven by security. In order to succeed, they might need to be surrounded by strategists. Invest in your strengths and surround yourself with people who can fill in the gaps.
When you know your varna—your passion and skills—and you serve with that, it becomes your dharma.
TRY THIS: REFLECTED BEST-SELF EXERCISE
Choose a group of people who know you well—a diverse mix of people you’ve worked with, family, and friends. As few as three will work, but ten to twenty is even better.
Ask them to write down a moment when you were at your best. Ask them to be specific.
Look for patterns and common themes.
Write out a profile of yourself, aggregating the feedback as if it weren’t about you.
Think about how you can turn your best skills into action. How can you use those skills this weekend? In different circumstances or with different people?
TEST-DRIVE YOUR DHARMA
The Vedic Personality Test helps you begin to see your varna, but just like a horoscope, it can’t tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow. It’s up to you to test these varnas in the real world through exploration and experimentation. If your varna is Leader, try to take on that role at work, or by organizing your kid’s birthday party. Do you genuinely take joy in the process?
Think about the level of awareness we have when we eat something. We immediately do a sense check and decide if we like it, and we wouldn’t have trouble rating it on a scale of one to ten if asked to do so. Furthermore, we might have different feelings about it the next day. (When I have my favorite chocolate brownie sundae on a Sunday night, I feel pretty happy about it, but by Monday morning I no longer think it was the best thing in the world to put in my body.) With both immediate and long-term reflection, we form nuanced opinions about whether we want to make that food part of our regular diet. All of us do this with food, we do it when we leave a movie theater (“Did you like it?”), and some of us do it on Yelp. But we don’t think to measure our compatibility with and taste for how we spend our time. When we get in the habit of identifying what empowers us, we have a better understanding of ourselves and what we want in life. This is exactly what we’re going to do to refine our understanding of our varna.
The first and most critical question to ask when you’re exploring your varna is:
Did I enjoy the process?
TRY THIS: KEEP AN ACTIVITY JOURNAL
Take note of every activity you take part in through the course of a few days. Meetings, walking the dog, lunch with a friend, writing emails, preparing food, exercising, spending time on social media. For every activity, answer the two questions fundamental to dharma: Did I enjoy the process? Did other people enjoy the result? There are no right or wrong answers. This is an observation exercise to amplify your awareness.
Test the description of your varna against your experience to pinpoint what you enjoyed about it. Instead of saying, “I love taking pictures,” find the root of it. Do you like helping families put together a Christmas card that makes them proud? (Guide) Do you like to document human struggles or other meaningful situations in order to promote change? (Leader) Or do you love the technical aspects of lighting, focus, and developing film? (Maker) As monks, every time we completed an activity or thought exercise like the ones in this book, we asked ourselves questions: What did I like about that? Am I good at it? Do I want to read about it, learn about it, and spend a lot of my time doing it? Am I driven to improve? What made me feel comfortable or uncomfortable? If I was uncomfortable, was it in a positive way—a challenge that made me grow—or a negative way? This awareness gives us a much more nuanced view of where we thrive. Instead of sending us on one and only one path, that awareness opens us to new ways we can put our passions to use.
EMBRACE YOUR DHARMA
Our heads might try to convince us that we’ve only ever made the best choices, but our true nature—our passion and purpose—isn’t in our heads, it’s in our hearts. In fact, our heads often get in the way of our passions. Here are some of the excuses that we use to close our minds:
“I’m too old to start my own business.”
“It would be irresponsible of me to make this change.”
“I can’t afford to do this.”
“I already know that.”
“I’ve always done it this way.”
“That way won’t work for me.”
“I don’t have time.”
Past beliefs, false or self-deceiving, sneak in to block our progress. Fears prevent us from trying new things. Our egos get in the way of learning new information and opening ourselves to growth. (More on this in Chapter Eight.) And nobody ever has time for change. But miracles happen when you embrace your dharma.
Growing up, Joseph Campbell had no model of a career that fit his diverse interests. As a child in the early 1900s, he became fascinated by Native American culture and studied everything he could about it. During college, he became entranced with the rituals and symbols of Catholicism. While studying abroad, his interests expanded to include the theories of Jung and Freud, and he developed an interest in modern art. Back at Columbia, Campbell told his dissertation advisors that he wanted to blend ancient stories about the Holy Grail with ideas in art and psychology. They rejected that idea. He abandoned work on his thesis and in 1949 found a job teaching lite
rature at Sarah Lawrence College, which he held for thirty-eight years. Meanwhile, he published hundreds of books and articles, and did a deep dive into ancient Indian mythology and philosophy. But it was in The Hero with a Thousand Faces that he first discussed his groundbreaking ideas about what he called “the hero’s journey”—a concept that established Campbell as one of the foremost authorities on mythology and the human psyche. As someone who followed his dharma, it’s no surprise that Joseph Campbell is the original source of the advice “Follow your bliss.” He wrote, “Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: Sat, Chit, Ananda. The word ‘Sat’ means being. ‘Chit’ means consciousness. ‘Ananda’ means bliss or rapture. I thought, ‘I don’t know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don’t know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.’ I think it worked.” If you follow your bliss, he said, “doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.”
Protective instincts hold us back or steer us toward practical decisions (Campbell did teach literature for thirty-eight years), but we can see past them and follow our dharma if we know what to look for.