I'm Shivani Gupta, and welcome to the Ask Shivani podcast. I believe that one of the best presents that you can give yourself is time to be able to sit down and ask yourself some questions. I believe that the quality of the question that you ask yourself will determine the quality of your life.

Shivani Gupta

Welcome to the AskShivani podcast I get to have as a guest, Tom Cronin today I have heard about time over the years, I've had friends, clients and colleagues that have talked about work that they've done with Tom. And so, it's so wonderful to have him on the podcast today. Let me tell you a little bit about him. He actually spent 26 years in the corporate sector in finance as a broker. And he found that he really wanted to help individuals and companies reach their optimal potential by removing stress from their lives through meditation and coaches. And so, for the last number of years, and we'll dive into some questions for Tom shortly. He's really been embracing meditation as a stress management tool. And been helping thousands and thousands of people and around the world to teach them how to meditate, how to break through the blocks and how to transform their lives. He's spoken on stages across the world, including countries like Mexico and barley in the States, KL and of course, Australia, where he is based. And he's worked with some of the top blue-chip, top ASX companies all around the world as well, including in Australia, certainly CVR Commonwealth Bank and Qantas, Coca Cola and Fairfax Media. He has raving reviews. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Welcome, Tom.

Tom Cronin

It's good to be here, thanks for inviting me along today.

Shivani Gupta 

Yeah, thank you. I've heard so much about you. Would you take us through Tom some of your journey and I guess around there, the main thing I always like focusing on is your big highlights but also your big lowlights because often they're your most transformational moments. So, what are some of these been for you that have got you doing what you do today?

Tom Cronin

I guess it started back, you know, when I entered into the world of finance, where I was trading on trading markets, doing swaps and bonds for international markets, international banks, you know, a lot of my clients and people like you know, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citibank, plus some Australian banks, CPA, Westpac and I was facilitating and executing trades for them on the global markets. And it was really exciting. You know, I didn't really feel that that was my career path. But I ended into that. The young, naive age of 19, just trying to find some money, before I went into the university degree, but before long, you know, went really into that the culture and the lifestyle, late 80s, early 90s of that finance market. And what that led to was a lot of imbalances, I didn't realize it at the time, I just thought that was part of the lifestyle, we do lots of drinking lots of late nights, lots of drugs. And now the universe is really good at trying to guide us and direct us in directions that were meant to be on this just call it our Dharma or life purpose, but it's very good at ignoring those signals. And so, I just kept going along that path and doing lots of hedonistic, narcissistic sort of things in that industry. And I was getting a lot of signals like anxiety and depression and panic attacks. And I just ignored them. I thought that was kind of part of life, I didn't really understand what was going on, I just normalized to living that way, being constantly stressed, constantly overwhelmed in this sort of quite dark and unhappy states. And this kind of exacerbated until eventually, I had really quite a dark period of my life and ultimately culminated in a nervous breakdown at the age of 29, I was quite a wreck, I couldn't go to work had mental health leave, the Tsar put on suicide watch, and seeing psychiatrists and psychologists and doctors and on pharmaceutical drugs and things were really kind of quite bleak. At that time, I was really sort of struggling to see any light at the end of the tunnel or sort of questioning whether I wanted to really go on with life. But it was in that time I came across meditation. And it was really quite an interesting time where I just was sitting at home watching TV, and there was a documentary about a property developer. And a very small part of that story was that he used meditation. And there it was in a pinstripe suit meditating. And that was like a real epiphany. For me, it was like a light bulb moment. And meditation wasn't something that I'd ever come across in my life. So, it really sort of triggered a reaction in me, which was like this curiosity, and, and a fascination with wanting to find out more about that. So that was a real starting point into my journey into meditation and mindfulness and Eastern philosophy. And that was really a big shift, you know, I became a lot of my addictions and anxiety, the depression, and that sort of melted away and I went back into the industry back into work back into the same job in the same client to the same company, and continued on there for 16 more years. So, I had quite a long standing 26-year career in finance as a broker, but the sort of ladder phase of that career was with meditation and not having the same sort of stress response. And then eventually I decided to leave and start teaching full time.

Shivani Gupta 

Yeah wow, I love how beautifully but succinctly you just explained the really dark times and how this you know, the universe sends you a little signal. And as you said, you ignored them for a while. And then you listen to that. And now you're doing this. This, you know, this full time. And I guess, you know, my next question, Tom, I'm always really curious around, when challenges come your way. And you know, now you're running your own business, and you help me 1000s of people across the globe. So, there'll be challenges there anyway. But when challenges come your way? What are the tools or processes or rituals that what do you use? And maybe, seeing that we're speaking? I'm speaking to a meditation teacher, maybe you do that. But would you take us through when challenges come your way? Small, medium, or large, and how do you combat that? How do you deal with them?

Tom Cronin

Yeah, you know, no matter what, how enlightened we are, or know what sort of tools and techniques we're using, we will still face challenges life is this constant stream of unmet expectations and uncertainty and changes and shifts and twists and turns that we don't expect. And so, one thing that obviously helps is meditation, it gives us greater adaptive capacity. And one of the things we're seeing in the world is the need for greater adaptive capacity. So, we're seeing the need to continuously adapt and change because the rate of change is progressing. And if we only go back 50 to 100 years and look at Nana and Pop, or Great Grandma or Grandpa, grandpa and see the level of change that they had to go through in their life, you know, they had the same job lived in the same place, and there wasn't a lot of adaptive capacity required. That's why life was you just get up, go to work and come home. Whereas these days, we're seeing the rate of change progressing so quickly, even our phones need to have an update button on them every six months or so. And we're having to constantly grapple with things changing and evolving. And if we don't increase our adaptive capacity, yet, we're asked to increase our adaptive capacity, we see this big gap opening up. And that's what causes stress. So, when challenges arise, meditation helps us to have greater adaptive capacity to see this sudden requirement for change or challenge and having to move through that, but then having greater ability to adapt to that requirement. So, meditation plays an integral role. And rather than waiting for the need to meet a challenge, or the need to go through a challenge, and then start meditating, to preempt that and have that as a daily exercise that allows you when the challenge arises, you've got the ability to make that. But the other thing is to intellectually shift our relationship to challenge and shift our relationship to crisis. And this is the big shift that I went through was that not seeing crisis as something that's punishing you, not seeing a challenge is something that you're a victim of that to sit in that challenge and sit in that crisis? And ask how is this supporting me? How is this helping me grow? How is this somehow as uncomfortable as this is, there's a, there's a lesson, there's a message, there's something for me to learn in this that's going to make my life better, and make me a better person. And that was a big thing. So even now, when things are rising in my life that are a bit challenged, it's like, how is this supporting me? How is this helping me grow? How is this guiding me in a way that's going to actually improve my life in some way, shape, or form. And that's a huge shift that we can go through when we're going through challenges and crisis, because then it really allows us to adapt and to lean into it, rather than repel back from it. And it's, that's a big thing that I teach my clients to do.

Shivani Gupta 

And Tom, obviously, with the pandemic that would have obviously affected some of your work, and I that affected my work and millions of people around the globe. And so, when you look at where you are now, and I'm not sure what the things got reset for you and I certainly started to go okay, well, what do I want to do? And what do I want to do more often less off? What are the future things for you? Like when you look out, whether it's a three year or five year or lesser of a timeframe? What sort of things do you aspire to, perhaps both in business and yourself personally, particularly come in as we navigate through the pandemic?

Tom Cronin

Yeah, definitely working less. That's a big one for me. Now, like, I'm really excited, I've just announced the teacher training program, we're getting a lot clearer about my business model. You know, the pandemic was a bit of a recalibration, I think, for a lot of businesses and start to really assess, and we're seeing a lot of businesses pivot and change, and adapt because of circumstances of a change. And you know, we're constantly looking those successful businesses are always evolving and growing and learning and changing. And so, for me, we, you know, we've got a few retreats coming up. And while we didn't, we underestimated that in particular Melbourne retreat, which last year in the before was sold out, and we had full house and people was oversubscribed. And this year, we're finding the numbers are really low for signups and so, as I was asking around and doing some research just to looking at, we've got a challenge here. How do we get around this? What are the what are the challenges with this? And how do we find a way through this. And what we found was that people in Victoria to tease are locked down, simply don't want to take a week's holiday and go on a retreat in Victoria, they want to go to Bali in Vancouver, they want to go skiing in Aspen and, or going on holidays in Greece and have beaches in Italy, rather than spending time here. So, you have to adapt, you have to think outside the box. And what do we do here? So, for me, going forward three to five years, we're really looking at focusing on less of diversity in our product range, and focusing on one teacher training program, teaching meditation teachers how to teach meditation, one launch of Zen Academy, which is a group coaching program for conscious leadership, and helping people set up their conscious leadership businesses to have those key pillars, one in the latter half of year, one in the former half of the year. And in amongst those some one-on-one coaching clients and some retreats and some corporate trainings. And that's pretty much the bee's knees to the to our business model.

Shivani Gupta

Yeah, that's, that's amazing. And I love the fact that you're doing teacher training. And I see lots of great yoga studios. And that as the offering and I think that's great. You're sort of passing that back. That's yeah, that's great to see. And so, it sounds like I know, we were speaking just before we hopped on, and started recording for this podcast, you were talking about your morning ritual. My next question is really around your own wellness, when you're helping so many others get well and look at their meditation and look at their rituals around meditation. Do you have daily, weekly, quarterly yearly rituals are all of the above? And you know, what are some of the things Tom that you do for your wellness? Would you take us through some of that?

Tom Cronin

Yeah, on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, there's definitely things that are critical. And, you know, they're, they're just completely locked in, you know, they're unconditional. So, my morning meditation and afternoon meditation are big things. Journaling is a big thing. I go to the gym three- or four-times weeks, I really like that grounded exercise of using weights, particularly when we're doing a lot of meditation, I find a way it's a very grounding for me, I do sauna, I like to sweat. So, I do iceberg sauna three to four times a week, when I do yoga classes three or four times a week. So, this is kind of like my key components. It's a very holistic approach, you know, what I ate, what I moved, how I move, how I stretch, how I strengthen how I, you know, replenish with fluids, and all that sort of stuff is very, very critical, what I read, so that's a weekly type of structure that I make sure that I get a lot of boxes ticked as far as my health and wellness. And I'm really big believer that we must walk the talk, and really embody physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually on all levels, we really want to embody inspiration, you know, if we want to be inspirational, then we have to represent something that's inspirational. And for me, that's critical as to looking at all areas of life, my relationships, my health, my well, all of that sort of stuff is going to be key. Then on a more sort of extended level, I like to sort of go away and have solitude and silence, I've only just started adding in once a month, I want to have 1–24-hour window of time with no phone. So, I've just added that in. So that's going to be a monthly thing that I'm going to have one day a month where I have at least 24 hours with zero phone. And that's usually when I go away to be in a forest somewhere. So, usually to take time away from friends, family, clients, I do a lot of coaching a lot of talking so having solitude and silence really important for me. So, these are sort of things that are critical for my journey as in sustainability in the work that I do.

Shivani Gupta

Yeah, that's amazing. And you know, a lot of the different listeners a lot of questions that I get people are like, you know, do you schedule and so do you just go that's the priority. So that comes first and then I will fit in my coaching clients, I will fit in my teacher training and other things around the things that are really important for me.

Tom Cronin

My calendar - that’s really important. So, my coaching clients book their own calls in but I set that schedule in Calendly, I use Calendly and so usually my Monday mornings are free but today I made some exceptions but usually what I block out Monday mornings I really like to start the week with some structure to my week and getting things clear about the weekend. Friday afternoons I have off so no one can book in my calendar on Friday afternoons, Wednesday mornings are completely clear because that's more of creative stuff set of setting up you know more programs and sort of social media and creative outlet. And so, I do compartmentalize my day, my day between one and three is completely blocked out and open book in my middle of my days I like to keep that free. I like to have naps and go for swims and saunas and have some time and then my mornings are always free up until nine o'clock. clock. So that really is just a sort of a sacred space till 9pm or 9am, where I like to really set up my I had quite a long morning routine, which includes yoga and breath work and journaling, and reading and meditation. So, it can be quite this morning, I think we're in for about two to three hours. So, I like to have a nice, long drawn-out morning session.

Shivani Gupta 

Yeah, no, that's beautiful. I recently went to a retreat where we had a breath workout came in, and I thought, oh, this is good. You know, a lot of people are talking about breath work. But it was really quiet an extraordinary session. So, I'm in the process of trying to work out, you know, if I've already got a ritual that's 45 minutes and with young kids, like, how do I just bring in two or three minutes of breath, work into that ritual? And doing that? So, I'm always fascinated and inspired. Tom, where you go, yeah, just block out a couple of hours. I'm like, Yeah, that's what I need to, I need to get to that's like the next level of from where I'm sitting as well.

Tom Cronin

And look, I just want to pause there because, you know, I'm sure probably some people right now are just freaking out. And thinking that there's no way I can possibly manage that. And it's, it's true, it's very difficult for a lot of people and for many, many years for me, you know, I've got twins, we're renovating houses, I was working as a broker, I was trying to build out the stillness project. So, I couldn't luxuriate in a two-to-three-hour morning stint, I just worked a long time and very hard and had a strong intention and vision that that's what I wanted to manifest in my life. And that was something that I had to get very clear on. Because I have manifest a very, very busy life with very, very little time, you know, I would squeeze in if I was lucky, 20 minutes of meditation morning and evening. And that was even a stretch sometimes. Whereas that took a long time for me to get clear about the life when it manifests. So, if you don't have much time, at the moment, just a 15-20 minutes meditation is going to be a great starting point.

Shivani Gupta 

Yeah, that's beautiful. I was listening to this nutritionist the other day. And she said, look, ideally, you want to have lots of legumes and lots of protein. And ideally, you want a pressure cooker, the more but if you don't have time, just use the canned stuff. It's not that much worse off. So, you know, it's a bit like the meditation if you've got five minutes to squeeze it in somewhere, rather than try and create this. You know, one-hour perfect setting, what do they say? No meditations about meditation. So, the fact that you've done it is great. That's awesome. Tom, I love some of the work. I've only just started following you, because I've been hearing about you so much. And so, if people want to find out more about your teacher training program, perhaps some of your retreats and a bit more about you what's the best platforms for us to find you.

Tom Cronin

They can find pretty much everything including my film and book the portal at https://tomcronin.com/ . So, it's all kind of in a one central hub, which will be very accessible retreats, coaching, teacher training and meditation workshops.

Shivani Gupta 

Oh, that's awesome. And we'll make sure that we have a little link of that when we publish the episode so that people can find you directly. So grateful, Tom, thank you for making the time on being here today.

Tom Cronin

It's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me along today.

Shivani Gupta

I'm Shivani Gupta. And you've been listening to the Ask Shivani podcast where I'd like to ask some questions. Thank you so much for listening. Please follow Ask Shivani on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. And if you haven't done so, please go to the Apple podcasts and subscribe rate and review this podcast. It would mean a lot. Thank you.