The easiest way to be successful in everything you do
A very serious conversation about avocado toast.
Last weekend on my flight back to LA, I had a layover in Charlotte.
I connect through CLT often, so I am acutely aware of the fresh avocado bar in the lounge there.
Today’s letter is about nothing more than the wonderful experience I had with the woman who was lovingly preparing the day’s avocado.
When you finish reading it, you’ll understand why what I’m about to say about the Avocado Lady is everything that needs to be said about anything.
It’s true that she prepared the avocado for me with great dignity and grace, taking great care to apportion just the right amounts of fresh avocado, egg, onion, cilantro, seasoning, and shredded Queso Cotija onto my plate and section them neatly so as not to cross-contaminate any crumb of one with the other.
It’s true that she pronounced Questo Cotija so delicately, without even the subtlest hint of indignation at my inquiry as to this type of cheese yet unknown to me, a mere traveler.
It’s also true that she so lovingly reminded me not to forget my fork, lest I dirty my hands, when she handed me my plate with the same tenderness with which a natal nurse might hand a newborn baby to its mother.
The truth is it’s hard for me to convey to you in words how warm and downright delightful my brief interaction with the Avocado Lady was.
But what really made it special was that certain quality of Being she had infused into the way she was doing all of these things, which lifted my spirits and stirred the bliss inside.
She didn’t offer me an avocado snack; she offered me her warmth and love with a side of veggies.
I trust you’ve had similar experiences, perhaps in forums as similarly mundane as an avocado bar in an airport lounge.
You could say it was Divine.
Avocado toast would have been nice, but the Avocado Lady made my morning.
That’s because the process is the outcome.
In this case, the outcome was not avocados, but bliss.
If she had prepared the avocados distractedly, the outcome would have been dullness.
How you do one thing is how you do everything.
To paraphrase from my colleague Christian Bevacqua’s recent letter:
It's not what you do; it's the way you do it.
It's not what you think; it's the way you think it.
It's not what you say; it is the way you say it.
It's not what you wear; it is the way you wear it.
And from Ayurvedic wisdom:
“It’s not what you eat; it’s the way you eat it.”
If you’ve skimmed the part about the avocados (it’s all avocados so far), I implore you to read with great care these next lines from Eckhart Tolle, who is not himself a member of the Vedic tradition, but who has, with this passage, reflected aspects of the knowledge of the tradition beautifully–because now comes the “everything” part I alluded to earlier:
“The world will tell you that success is achieving what you set out to do.
It will tell you that success is winning, and that finding recognition and/or prosperity are essential ingredients in any success.
All or some of the above are usually by-products of success, but they are not success.
The conventional notion of success is concerned with the outcome of what you do.
Some say that success is the result of a combination of hard work and luck, or determination and talent, or being in the right place at the right time.
While any of these may be determinants of success, they are not its essence.
What the world doesn't tell you— because it doesn't know—is that you cannot become successful—you can only be successful.
(Editor’s Note: In the same way that you cannot become perfect, but you can be perfect.)
Don't let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.
And what is that?
There is a sense of quality in what you do, even in the most simple action.
Quality implies care and attention, which come with awareness.
Quality requires your presence.
Let's say that you are a businessperson, and after two years of intense stress and strain, you finally manage to come out with a product or service that sells well and makes money. Success?
In conventional terms, yes.
In reality, you spent years polluting your body as well as the earth with negative energy, made yourself and those around you miserable, and affected many others you never even met.
The unconscious assumption behind all such action is that success is a future event, and that the end justifies the means.
But the end and the means are one.
And if the means did not contribute to human happiness, neither will the end.”
The Avocado Lady was filling such a simple role—one that many may even look down upon as a career choice.
Given a choice, few would choose airport avocado barista as a career. Few would define this as success.
But more should.
Because when we realize the process and the outcome are one, we can see that the Avocado Lady is more successful than most, simply by nature of the way she was handling that avocado.
Which does the world need more of right now—shrewd stress-bag businessmen, or amicable avocado ladies?
It’s ok to aspire to more than a life of avocados—but the way to get there is to treat the avocados like they’re the most important things in the world—because they are.
One day soon, some high-powered executive is going to encounter Avocado Lady in the CLT lounge and hire her on the spot to run HR for his corporate conglomerate—and then she’ll have conventional success on top of her successful way of Being.
But never forget that the latter begets the former, and not the other way around.
Each time we close our eyes for our twice-daily practice of Vedic Meditation and move into contact with Being, a little more of it sticks with us as we emerge back into daily life.
So you’re well on your way to the top.
And if you want to accelerate your path there, I highly recommend Christian and his lovely wife Jamey’s upcoming Big Bear retreat this August 2–5th.
Let’s discuss these and other ideas during Collective Effervescence, our online group meditation series, this Sunday June 9 at 12PM ET. Drop in for meditation only (first 30 min) or stay for discussion + Q&A on this and other life topics from the Vedic perspective. Join the WhatsApp group to receive reminders 24 hours before each session, or use the below links to have all upcoming dates automatically sync to your calendar.
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Music today is Mothers Love by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, the late Ethiopian pianist who lived voluntarily without electricity or shoes for a decade, I’m told by the Divine soul who shared her music with me. I had the pleasure of enjoying this record with my mom on one of our last days together during my visit last week, and it was also Divine. Moms are some of the most successful people on Earth.