Gurutej On Becoming Free From The Fear Of Failure

An Interview With Savio P. Clemente

Take a deep breath and ask yourself, “If I died tomorrow, would this really matter?” It takes the pressure off you, so you don’t need to freak out. It gives you perspective, a larger perspective.

The Fear of Failure is one of the most common restraints that hold people back from pursuing great ideas. Imagine if we could become totally free from the fear of failure. Imagine what we could then manifest and create.

In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who can share stories and insights from their experiences of “Becoming Free From the Fear of Failure.” As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Gurutej.

Gurutej emerged as a founding practitioner of Kundalini. As a prolific writer, Gurutej is an author of 4 popular books, including A Slice of the Beloved: Connection for Relationships, The Moon She Rocks You: Revealing the Secrets of Women’s Inner Emotions, Empower Your Essence, and The Art of Energy How to get great energy. She has also developed Empowered Energy Academy offering 11 transformative, powerful online courses, her True Success mentoring program, and teaches worldwide.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

Love this question. I always wonder how far back is your back story. I grew up Catholic in a very Catholic midwestern small town 1 of 6 children, and yes, we went to mass every day, and I actually loved it. I went to a private boarding school for high school. I got kicked out or asked not to return because I was too rebellious. As Class President, I actually wanted to make changes in things that didn’t seem to be working well.

My next chapter was college. I attended the University of Missouri, then the University of Arizona.

I started out in Psychology because 2 of my uncles were Psychologists. I switched to Fashion design and merchandising in my 3rd year, which was more my love. I had designed my own clothes since I was in grade school. I embraced TM (transcendental meditation) and drugs both with great enthusiasm that year. After 3.25 years left college after finding yoga in May of 1970. Yoga became my love and actually my life.

I moved to DC to live in a yogic ashram.. From there my teacher arranged both my marriage and my location. I would now move to Toronto. Brrr and miserably hot and muggy summers. Not to mention my arranged marriage was to a violent narcissist. Yes, here I was building and running a spiritual community with a person beloved by the community and violent and insane with me. Oh, was I perfect? NO. I did feel crazy, and that is when I got to see how well Yoga and Meditation worked to keep me from becoming truly insane. I Gave birth to two amazing and very unique children. “Greafully” got divorced, though being a single mom to two teens was not a piece of cake. I was in a long-term relationship for 8 years, then on my own for 17 years where I built my business and was actually able to buy a house in Los Angeles. Not a small gift. I then met the wonderful man who is now my husband at 60, and that was when my adopted daughter at 44 yrs. old became sick with cancer and died in 4 months. Then 3 months after that, my daughter, who was in medical school, found out she had stage 4 CLL (Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia ) stemming from using toxic chemicals when she was in the peace corps in Honduras. The chemicals that are illegal here that we ship off to less developed countries. She lived for 2.25 years after the diagnosis. My husband’s father and father passed during the first 6 years we were together as well as a dear friend whom we had just visited and his adopted Nanna. We had no honeymoon period. It really threw us together deeply. Oh, and his son was in a life-and-death fight with addiction. I know what I share with you will support you. All I share with you is tried and tested. These are the mindsets and tools I embraced to get through the massive challenges I got to experience in life and business to stay “greatful” and radiantly alive.

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

Ha so many to choose from. I think the leap from being in the states and moving to Canada to live and marry someone I didn’t love truly I didn’t even like because my teacher told me to. I gained so much from that marriage. I kept thinking all the time I was going through the hell we called marriage. I can remember this because I can help others through these things in their life. And love, that has been so true. I saw the gifts under the dung heap of my hard-won lessons and translated them into practical tools to help so many others.

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success?

Discipline, Willingness to work hard, and a Sense of humor.

Can you please share a story or example for each?

Willingness: This is what got me to take the leap of moving to Canada when I wasn’t attracted to that move at all. I met wonderful people there. I got to do a lot of networking and joint ventures with some of these people, and many are my friends and colleagues today. This Willingness helped me to take leaps in other areas of my life and business. Saying yes and taking leaps gave me the flexibility that is so important in all areas of life. Trust me, this was a huge leap. It felt like a leap off the end of the cliff where I couldn’t see the bottom. The landing was not soft and comfy either. Yet that is what got me to show up and do the work it took to run a spiritual community at 23 yrs old when I had no idea what I was doing. My sense of humor felt like it died in my marriage. That is one of the markers I use to help people decide if they need to seek help in their relationships or if they need to bless them and put them aside. Such an important asset using this as a marker. My now husband and I were able to laugh together and cry the last couple of months of my daughter’s life that we were blessed to spend with her. The laughter was so important when nothing seemed funny, and blessings to the Big Bang Theory, one of my assisted humor places during that time.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the concept of becoming free from failure. Let’s zoom in a bit. From your experience, why exactly are people so afraid of failure?

Because for many, there is the feeling that you might die if you fail. Why is failure so frightening to us? Because the thing we are the most scared of in life is our death. For most people, failure is tied to that fear of death.

What are the downsides of being afraid of failure?

That you never take the leaps that come your way. You stay small and “seemingly safe. Yet you never experience the vastness of your love nor your life.

How can it limit people?

It’s like putting a cap on your life. We think “Staying safe” means no risks (ha, but that’s not possible). So really staying small it’s what I call going postal. Showing up in the body for something you don’t really want to be doing or a relationship you don’t really want, leaving the rest of you parked somewhere else. You may feel you are too old, or there may not be a better person or job for you, so you stay put instead of being adventurous and embracing the zest and aliveness that this life asks of you.

In contrast, can you help articulate a few ways how becoming free from the free of failure can help improve our lives?

It can allow you to take leaps that you would otherwise resist.

It can allow you to have greater joy and love and wonder and, most of all, creativity.

Taking leaps means you are willing to be creative, whether you stay with the leap and create something wonderful or get creative in finding your way out of a situation and into something better.

We would love to hear your story about your experience dealing with failure. Would you be able to share a story about that with us?

Bankruptcy while my daughter was sick. I hit a real down cycle in my business, for I worked with businesses in 2008. When the economy tanked, companies weren’t hiring people to work with their staff as I was to have better energy, more clarity, and creativity. Thought still important not critical to keeping their business alive. Boom, it all vanished, and my daughter was sick. So I got to get creative. How would I support my daughter with such little income? I got to get creative even when I had to declare Bankruptcy. I started holding fundraisers for her, though I had never created a fundraiser in my life. I created 3 very lucrative fundraisers and inspired friends and some students to create ones on their websites and in person too. Together we managed to create a great source of income for my daughter to pursue any alternative healing she wanted along with her Chemo etc. I managed to keep my home and find a redirect to teach more Yoga Teachers Training that sustained me. Oh, I revived my modeling career, but I must say that it didn’t support me. I only tell you this because every attempt to redirect doesn’t work. Thus losing the fear of failure allows you to put a few branches out and see which one blooms.

What did you learn from this whole episode?

That I am super resilient, and so are you, love.

What advice would you give to others based on that story?

Get creative when you hit a wall. It’s not the end, just the end of this particular cycle. Ask yourself “what’s possible next?” What would you love to do now? Who do you know that could help you?

Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that everyone can take to become free from the fear of failure”?

Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Take a deep breath and ask yourself, “If I died tomorrow, would this really matter?” It takes the pressure off you, so you don’t need to freak out. It gives you perspective, a larger perspective.
2. You don’t have to do this whatever your this alone. Find a good mentor who has been there before you and hire them to help you through this time. Even if you think you can’t afford it. You don’t have to do this alone.
3. Failure is the back door to success. A very successful friend of mine told me once. “Yes, you see this successful company, but you have no idea of the other ideas I had and tried that failed.”
4. Failure means you have tried something. Bravo! You are building your courage muscle. It will serve you for future ventures. Life requires big doses of courage to succeed.
5. Fear is a notification that gets linked to an old story to keep you captive in the past. When you look fear in the eye and say, “Thank you for protecting me. Now help me take this leap.” it can really give you insight and support.

The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.” Based on your experience, have you found this quote to be true?

Not at all. I feel there are as many ways to succeed as there are to fail.

What do you think Aristotle really meant?

That the only way to succeed is to put aside the fear of failure and forget all the ways we try to justify our fear of failure and look more deeply and vastly into what could be. Again you don’t have to do this all by yourself. Get support.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be?

That everyone could become their own energy Guru. Meaning that each “hueman” would have the tools and the practice to change their energetic states. Meaning you are not a slave to everything that comes towards or at you. You can have ways to shift your energy to act with clarity, not reaction. This is what creates your personal power. To be truly empowered, you GET to know how to change your energetic states to get calm and connected quickly so you can make clear and powerful decisions in your business and personal life. You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them :-)

Elon Musk. I think he is a genius. He is tuned into some channels not accessible by most. Not that I would want to live with him, but I’d love to have a long connected meal with him.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

https://gurutej.com They can also, on my site, set up a free 15 min call with me about 1 situation in their life that needs laser attention to shift.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.