My friend Rishab, dragged me to a hiking event yesterday, to socialize in the morning - the time when I rarely want to talk to anyone as I am in my own zone - practicing my morning rituals - writing, exercising, reading, listening to music, sharing gratitude, and having coffee.

Being a new introvert in the world from being a big extrovert - meeting a lot of people together has been a little overwhelming these days. So I try to talk less and listen more to conversations of other people.

As I was looking around, I saw Max on one side, looking at the ocean, a natural curiosity came into my mind - and I went to him and asked - so brother - what do you do?

It was so natural flow to learn what he does for work, what he enjoys what brings him to America and what is he looking forward to doing. In fact, it felt so aligned with my philosophy that within a few mins - we connected very well. I made a quick 1 min reel of my daily videos and talked about his running adventure.

All I heard were 2 things from him that attracted me:

* Long Distance Running

* Spirituality

As I ran a few marathons last year and an Ironman 70.3 race, I myself went through a similar spiritual awakening.

I won’t forget the day when on a random run - in the middle of it - the thought of me lying to someone came and I just started crying with myself. I called that person immediately and spoke the truth irrespective of thinking about the result of it.

One of my other friends - also went through a similar experience of crying during the long runs because of a lie that he was keeping with him for a long time in order to avoid breaking up with his partner. One day - he spoke the truth and felt free. They are together - even stronger now.

This tells me that the body and soul are pure by nature. And its cleaning is required from time to time. Running is a great way to do that.

Someone asked me a few months ago - so what do you think during these long runs? I didn’t have an answer - honestly - it’s like everything. Sometimes the ocean that I am going to touch soon on my run, sometimes the golden gate bridge, sometimes looking at a store, or sometimes enjoying a family walking by. I rarely think about the pain as it doesn’t do any good on my run.

As I met Max - who runs 170 miles, which is equivalent to 7 marathons, I thought what would he think during his runs? How would he fight the demons in his head? The curiosity made us have a heart-to-heart conversation while sitting around the Golden Gate Bridge and understanding his journey in athletics. I learned a lot during the conversation, hope you enjoy it too.

The audio version of the conversation is above and the video version is on youtube at this link

I know the situation in Ukraine is not well and it’s sad that we have to go through this during these times - in the Modern World. This is my way of supporting Ukraine during these tough times. With lots of love for Ukraine.

Good luck brother, in your journey to sharing love with the world!

Have a beautiful day in paradise you all! 😘🥰💕💜

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