Reinforcement and Repetition

This week, I attended a wellness-centered event organized by Intentional AAPI and Allies, a community I’ve been part of for the last year here in New York City. This group is rooted in shared inquiry around Asian identity, supporting conscious entrepreneurs and innovators—especially those from immigrant and Asian American heritage - in a created culturally attuned space where Asian Americans embodied wellbeing—experiencing felt safety, wholeness, and connection in mind, body, spirit, and relationships is a baseline.

By weaving, shared discovery of what it means to belong in a way that is meaningful in today’s world full of noise and surface connections, to break intergenerational cycles of disconnection to focus on ripple healing and vitality for  families, communities, and the world. It’s a space where cultural nuance, ambition, and healing intersect.

The Tuesday event was held in a warm, open loft in Brooklyn. The focal guest: a monk. Born in India and raised in Chicago. Swami Chidananda's identity was based on Indian traditions and he grew up navigating the same performance-driven expectations that many of us internalize: do more, earn more, optimize everything. His journey, which once led through mergers and acquisitions, eventually diverged. He chose devotion. He chose depth. He chose stillness.

As he spoke, I felt something in me shift. A heart opening. A mind opening. And curiously, a kind of body opening—a lightness, a vibrational yes in my cells. There was something deeply satisfying about hearing a spiritual perspective articulated in the cadence of a fellow overachiever. The monk wasn’t prescribing escape from life, but rather a reorientation within it.

One of the most vivid metaphors he shared was this: Spiritual progress is like walking up a hill toward a cliff. Each workshop, each ceremony, each self-improvement book or yoga class—these are all steps we take up that hill. But once we get to the top, the only way to embody unconditional love, the only way to truly live from freedom, is to jump. To jump off that cliff into the unknown.

But what do most of us do instead?

We stall.

We pause to sip cacao. We eat croissants. We build a little cafe at the edge of the cliff, invite our friends to sit with us, and talk about how beautiful jumping will be—one day.

The monk called this the Café on the Cliff. And many of us live there. It’s comfortable. It feels spiritual. We’ve done the inner work. We’ve read the books. But we’re still afraid. So we decorate the cliffside. We get really good at talking about transformation instead of living it.

Another story that stuck with me was his tale of Taquis—those spicy Mexican snacks. He had once mentioned, offhandedly during a talk, that he liked Taquis, but they were just a preference, not a desire. Over the course of several days, attendees brought him bag after bag. Eventually he had 50 bags of Taquis.

One day, he left them with the event organizer, saying he’d return to eat some the next day. But when he came back, the Taquis were gone—served at a last-minute party.

His reaction? Anger.

That’s when he realized: Taquis weren’t a preference. They had become a desire.

This story made everyone laugh—but it also carried deep resonance. Because we all tell ourselves we’re "not attached." We call things preferences. But when they’re taken from us, we discover the truth.

The monk's lesson? Desire with attachment creates suffering. Preference without clinging creates peace.

So what does this have to do with leadership, or with our everyday lives?

It’s about self-honesty. Many of us—especially those who are children of immigrants—were raised not to express wants. Wanting was selfish. Shameful. Needy. So we buried desire under performance, and created elaborate metrics for success that were actually just substitutes for love.

The invitation now is to listen to our inner fire: "I want to create something rooted in love." That kind of desire is sacred. It’s the only desire worth keeping. We may want to build companies, write books, start collectives—but the core intention must be to share love, not to prove worth. If we follow that thread sincerely, the outcomes become secondary.

The monk offered a powerful distinction:

• Desire: I must have it. If I don’t, I suffer.

• Preference: I would like it. But if not, I’m okay.

And with that, a map emerges:

CAFE ON THE CLIFF

-----------------

|                 |

CROISSANT     CACAO + CHAI

|                 |

GOOD CONVERSATION     NEW AGE RITUALS

|                 |

DELAY & SPIRITUAL DECORATING

|

|

JUMP  <---- SERVICE or SUFFERING push you

|

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

So what is Reinforcement and Repetition?

It’s the way we loop. The way we keep building the cafe instead of jumping. The way we keep practicing, but not surrendering. We reinforce the identity of the seeker, but repeat the pattern of the avoider.

To change that, we need:

• A teacher, who lovingly calls out our blind spots.

• A community, that reflects our longing for truth.

• A practice, that grounds us in presence and softens the ego.

But mostly—we need the courage to jump.

Not to escape, but to serve. Not to transcend, but to love. Not to win, but to be free.

May we all notice when we’re sipping cacao and decorating the cliff. And may we each, in our own time, be willing to let go— and fly.