Today we are exploring the topic of manhood and what it means to live as a 'complete man.'

We are joined by my friend, world-renowned strategic advisor and best-selling author Purdeep Sangha. In his new book, The Complete Man, he unapologetically tackles some taboo subjects surrounding what it means to be a man, the specific demons men face, and the unique calling on their lives.

Whether you are a man or a woman, this conversation will unlock spiritual truths for your mind, body, and spirit (plus, he gives one of the most beautiful explanations of enlightenment I have ever heard). 

Topics We Explore:

• Seeing his father struggle with alcoholism (and how it affected him as a young man)
• Understanding suffering and the roots of struggle.
• Men and addiction (and why this topic is the most popular chapter in his book).
• The 3 frameworks of the complete man.
• The one thing men often forget about (that is part of their makeup).

Connect with Purdeep Sangha:

• Buy the Physical Book: www.completemanbook.com
• Buy the Audio Book: www.completemanaudio.com (Use Code: “VICTORY75” for 75% off)
• Personal Website: https://purdeepsangha.com/  

Episode Transcript:

Erik Solbakken: Hi, everyone. I'm Eric Solbakken, and welcome to the Viking Academy Podcast. On today's episode, we have Purdeep Sangha. Now, Purdeep is the CEO of Sangha Worldwide. He is an ultra-performance coach for business leaders, and specifically on this interview with him, we're gonna talk about his book, The Complete Man, and his understanding of the psychology around being a complete man. Now, for the Viking Academy, we're not specifically for men or exclusively for women. It's for both. It's a framework to help you explore the three dimensions of your self, is going exploring yourself through the mind, body, and spirit, and Purdeep completely encompasses that. He surprises me in this podcast of his deep understanding and integration of the spiritual side. I knew he was really deep into the mindset. He uses neuropsychology and performance psychology to unravel and unlock people's performance, but we also go down the route of personal experience with his family and alcoholism, and I share my story of alcoholism. And we will talk about the three frameworks that he has within The Complete Man that you can apply to any person, man, woman, child, for that matter. So I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I did. You'll see that Purdeep and I got along like a house on fire, as we always do. So as always, let's go explore Sudeep, where the hell have you been? I haven't seen you in forever.

Purdeep Sangha: Eric, man, yeah, it's been a while. It's good, it's good to catch up. It has, it's been, what, probably four months, three months?

Erik Solbakken: Yeah, and we were talking to each other like on a regular basis, like, like bi-weekly, weekly at one point, looking to get some things off the ground. And you and I have both gotten different things off the ground, which I'm looking forward to talking to you about. The Viking Academy is one of those. And so here we are, the Viking Academy Podcast. I'm really excited about this one. So, and I'm really excited mostly to get into your brain, and I wanna talk about your book and your coaching around The Complete Man. That's what I wanna dive into today. And plus catch up, because, we've, we haven't seen each other for a long time, so I'm sure there's a lot more where we can go down. We're gonna go down a lot of rabbit holes, but I gotta see if we can keep this as coherent as possible.

Purdeep Sangha: Sounds good to me.

Erik Solbakken: Right on, man. So The Complete Man, the book, the. It's been a while since I read it, and I went back in and I brushed myself up again on it. And the reason why I wanted to bring you in, especially on the Viking Academy Podcast, is there's an alignment there with your thinking and your teaching around The Complete Man and the Viking Academy's vision of finding your purpose, your passion and purpose in life by diving into your mind, your body, and your spirit. And, with, with The Complete Man, can you just give me a. Let's first of all, let's give the listeners a little background on who you are and what you do, and what got you to write The Complete Man, the book The Complete Man.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah, sounds good to me. So I'm a kid of immigrant parents. They came over in the '70s. They landed in British Columbia, and so not too far from you, Eric. They were in Kelowna, and that's where I grew up. That was pretty much, you can say, my upbringing. I grew up on an orchard, which I think was probably one of the best things I could have asked for, like, or not even asked for, I could have had as a kid, because that was a big part of The Complete Man as well, and I can talk about that when we get into it. I grew up on an orchard. I was surrounded by strong men, my dad, for example, uncles, and they just knew how to work hard, right? They were shoveling all day long. They were doing physical labor. This is before they brought in more machinery to do the work instead of, human power. And so that's how I grew up, which then shaped a lot of who I am today and the concept of The Complete Man. And alongside of that, my great-grandfather was a spiritual teacher in India for 60-plus years.

Erik Solbakken: Dude, I

Purdeep Sangha: did

Erik Solbakken: not- So- Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't know that.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah, yeah, in India. So he was my great-grandfather, and so that's a big part of our lineage, and a big part of why a- again, everything came together. That's, that's a big element of it. So he, he taught my grandfather, who then also immigrated over to Canada, and when I was a young boy, about eight or nine years old, he is the one that taught me about spirituality. He is the one that taught me about meditation, mindfulness, principles, because here's the interesting part. There's a very big alignment between spiritual practices and even military practices, because there's, it all comes back to discipline, right? And everything in moderation. And so those are key elements of being the complete man. But then, if we take a look at- The real motivation for me writing the book was my dad 'cause I saw my dad, I saw his struggles And I saw him being a business owner and giving everything to his family, and then leaving very little for himself, and not being able to cope with it effectively, and then dealing with alcoholism, and that exacerbated. So what I do today based on all of. there's a lot more to that, but, fast-forward today, I've, I've made it my mission to work with men, particularly professional men, men who are CEOs, executives, business owners, to help them be successful in all areas of their life. We created a firm where someone could come to us and say, "Hey, Pradeep, what? We, we wanna grow our business," or, "Hey, look, I'm having challenges on the personal side. I just wanna learn how to have a better work-life balance or have better relationships," or both. Because I wish my dad had someone when he was going through his challenges to be able to lean on or get support from or get insight from. So that's essentially what we do today.

Erik Solbakken: , I jokingly said that you're like my brother from another mother, but after all that stuff you just told me, it's like even more so. Like, I'm also- Mm. my parents immigrated to Canada in 1969. I was then born a couple months later in the beginning of 1970. Yeah. Immigrant parents. I'm a recovered alcoholic. I'm a recovering alcoholic, and my, my journey has been about diving deep into spirituality and, and starting with that as a base. Mm. Like that for me to the spiritual foundation, shall we say, is to, is to come from there first and then straighten. And, 'cause that's what they teach you in the, in the recovery program. It's like you gotta clean up spiritually first, and then you'll clean up mentally and physically. Not any other way around. Like, don't start with your physical or your mental first, and then try and get spir- spiritual first, then mental and physical. So yeah, but I didn't realize that about your, the spiritual teaching. So we, we can- we're gonna go down a whole bunch of great roads here. So you saw your dad struggle. Did you struggle?

Purdeep Sangha: Well, I struggled as a kid seeing my dad struggle because it was a love-hate relationship, and I also struggled a little bit later on, too. But if I take a look at my dad, when I was a young boy watching him drink. So when he was sober, my dad was awesome. we're talking about, - Mm. being a Viking, for example. But, it's, let's just say a similar kind of a way in the Indian tradition because there's a whole history about Sikhism and how Sikhism started, which is, the religion of Sikhs in Punjab. And my dad was one of those guys that was extremely masculine. Like, you didn't have to see him to, to feel his presence in the room. Like, he just had it, but he was so, I'm gonna say, in tune with his masculinity, a- I don't even. It wasn't even a conscious thing. It's, it's just who he was, that he could also be very emotional. He was the most emotional man I know as well, and no one questioned his masculinity. But the challenge when you asked about struggle was that when he drank too much, he was a completely different guy. He was a big dude, 6'1", 240 pounds, strong. Like, and sometimes he just was like a bomb went off, right? So if something pissed him off and he was drunk, I- it's like run. Right? or what I learned because it, it just happened to be part of who I was, and I guess the person, being the older son, I was the person that calmed him down. So I was the only person that was able to calm him down. And for some reason, my dad and I built this bond where, when he was upset and I was around him, he felt more calm. Like, I literally would put my dad to bed when he was drunk as a young boy, right? And then as I, we got older, like, it was just like, "Okay, Dad, you're hammered. Let's pick you up, put you to bed." And it was. That was a very, I'm gonna say, painful experience because I was freaked out because I was like, if my dad woke up. I knew my dad would never harm me by any means. He loved us, right, my brother and I. But if he woke up and something was a- like, he was just in a rage. He would have night terrors Like literally night terrors in the middle of the night, and you could hear him just screaming. I think something happened in his past and he hasn't fully. Well, he's passed away now, but he hadn't dealt with it. My grandfather was in the military in India for 30-plus years, as I said. he was a very spiritual man, but also. So this is kind of-- I, I wanna make sure people understand. So my great-grandfather was a spiritual teacher. His son, my grandfather, was a very spiritual man but also in the military for 35 years, away from his family for 10 months out of the year. So my dad was raised by his uncle a lot of the time, so he was not a good influence, who drank a lot, was just not a, I'm gonna say, very straight arrow like my grandfather was. And something must have happened. My grandfather also took him to military camps a couple of times, like when he would be away in other parts of India. He took my dad as a young boy, and I don't know if something happened during those periods, 'cause I don't think that's a right place to be for young kids, is. 'Cause we're not talking about the military camps here. We're talking about different military camps. Like, you're sometimes drinking your own piss, right? Because back in those days, it's India. It's a third world country. So I think he had some challenges in hin-life, his life that he brought into adulthood, which we kind of absorbed as kids, mo- mainly me as an older son. But I, I'm gonna say without a shadow of a doubt was a huge, huge positive, experience for me because I learned so much. I learned about the human psyche, and I purposefully started to study his behavior. I learned about men in particular, because I would study him and other guys and, and his reaction with my mom, and then the differences in gender roles, which is really interesting right now, right? 'Cause that's been hugely challenged and thrown upside down. But that gave me the skill to be able to have these conversations with men. And so you asked again, did I struggle? Yeah, there was probably a period of time in my life where I, in my 20s, because of that, I had this anger in me with my dad, 'cause it's, it's a messed up relationship to have when you loved your dad so much, right? And you can rely on him when he's sober. He would there be in an instant, right? I could call him and he'd be there. I could ask him for as much money as, as I wanted. He would give it to me. Not that I did, but he would. But when he's drunk, it's like, "I hate my dad." So that internal aspect of me, I never reconciled until I was probably in my 30s and late 30s And that ate me up. So when I would drink sometimes I would. I started drinking, but more partying. I wouldn't get violent, but maybe I drank too much and did some stupid stuff. But there was a period there where I just didn't feel good about myself. There was just something inside of me that I just hadn't dealt with, and that took me a while, but I got past it.

Erik Solbakken: And there's so many things I could go down, so many topics I can unpack there. But one of the things that just struck me was, again, my, my experience with life so far, and I'm continually exploring these, the three aspects of my nature, like my mind, my body, my spirit. I'm, I'm. This is what we're doing right now. Like I'm exploring this now and you're l- you're teaching me as you're, as you're, y-, 'cause I think we're all collaborating with one another on this planet. Like we all collab- Yeah. we're, like I don't see myself above or below anybody else. I'm in a collaborative state where I'm collaborating with every person, like even the little baby I saw at Starbucks this morning, I'm collaborating with them. Like interacting with them, right? But it took me a long time to get to that point in my life where I understood that clearly. Mm. I'm listening to your experience on what you had to go through, the painful relationship with your father, to the, the man that you are now, and to see the passion and the purpose that you have when you're, you're bringing this forward, and you bringing the complete man forward. It's like the universe knew what it was doing. It was giving you all these tests and trials, and when you look back in 20/20 vision, you can go, "Oh, that's why that happened," do? Like that's why these things happen along the way is so that I could become the person I am today, right? And, and so bringing that message to say with the next generation, not wanting them to suffer the way we did or at least being aware of the fact that these trials and tribulations are all part of your, your growth process. It's all part of tuning you into who you want to, who you really are here to become. And then I see this experience that you had and all these p- like I didn't know those points you told me about your past, and we've talked so much. But that was just like to see all those come together, all of a sudden it all s- makes sense why of course you would write The Complete Man, of course you would be passionate about helping men. And not only that, but business owners and men, like that's the other part. Like, that's why you and I click so well, is like we're, w- we're, we're addressing the mind, body, and spirit, but also in business. We love that combination and, and I can see that clearly, For, for that, if you could go back and talk to yourself, okay? Y- younger yourself when you were going through that with your dad- What advice would you give yourself?

Purdeep Sangha: I, I probably would have th- told myself it's gonna be okay. Like, it's okay. You're gonna get through this, you're gonna get through this stronger. Because my wife asks me all the time, like, "Why don't you get stressed?" I have a very high stress tolerance, and nothing really bothers me, except for if, if, if it's with my kids. something's happening there. O- otherwise, it's like whatever. I get a business failure. Oh, well. Whatever. Move on. It's because of that experience that I had with my dad, I would say was some of the most terrifying moments of my life. Like, I remember those, and it's not because I knew he was gonna hurt me, 'cause he wouldn't. It was just seeing someone that wasn't able to help themselves, and being helpless in that space because you want your loved ones to not suffer. I saw. I knew my dad was struggling more than I was, right? Like, that's, that was the most painful part, 'cause he wanted to get better. He wanted to get past it, but it wasn't acceptable at that time for men, especially in the Indian culture, to go to AA. Picking up a self-help book wouldn't have been something, 'cause he didn't fully understand the concepts of English, right? In, in English writing. So that was his journey. In fact, I can tell you, so I'm, I'm making this long-winded, but I do look back and sometimes I do, put myself in those shoes, and I just give myself a little bit of love and comfort and say, "It's okay." Like, "You'll be good." And I look at my son, because my son is 11 years old, and I look at him and I say, "Wow," like because it, it's very. Being a dad isn't easy, as, right? It- Oh,

Erik Solbakken: trust me, I know. And my. I- Isla's 11, and we just found out she lied about something, and Erin and I are having our first- Oh, how do we deal with this situation? So I. And I've got two older kids, too, so I've been down that path, so I totally know what you're talking about.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah. It's one of the, it's the one of those most ex- experiential things that I, I think every man should go through at some point. I look at my son, and I have to be very careful because there's a part of me, and this is a role of us men, to teach our sons and to make sure that they grow up with values and principles. Be able to see him for who he is, to see his soul, to see what he is really about rather than what I wanna project onto him. That is something that is so important, right? Because I don't want him to look back- And say, what? My dad held me back from this or projected this on me or did whatever, and that's always gonna happen. A- again, I'm making this long-winded. Going back, I do look at myself and say, "It's going to be okay.", you're gonna get better as a result of this. You're gonna help more people as a result of this as well.

Erik Solbakken: Now, you said something in there. When you saw your dad going through that when you were a kid, did you realize and have that understanding that he was suffering more than you were, or is that something that you understand now looking back on?

Purdeep Sangha: I. It took me a while because at, at the beginning, I didn't realize. I knew he suffered, but I didn't understand why. So I didn't understand the mechanics of it. I understand the mechanics of it now. 'Cause as we get older as men, we realize, like I always. E- almost every single day, I'm like, "Damn, that's how Dad felt." I understand. And I understand, like sometimes, like there'll be situations in my life, and I don't drink a lot, right? I will drink, but I don't drink a lot. And sometimes I'll just be like, "I'm just gonna have a shot here." I connect back, I'm like, "I g- I get it. I get it. I understand. I understand." Or my dad, he, he had other behaviors, and I'm like, "I get it." Like he used to have this thing where he would drink and get his phone book and call up I don't know how many people and spend like six or seven hours on the phone and just call his relatives from here and in India, and my mom would get so pissed. And I'm like, and I found myself doing something similar 'cause all my friends are back in BC, I'm in Ontario, calling them up. "Hey, guys. How you doing?" Right? And then I thought, "Wow, I get it." Right? There's a sense of loneliness that my dad had, so those are, things that I, that pop up, but it's a great learning experience, right?

Erik Solbakken: I'm laughing right now. I don't mean to, but it's called. We did it, 'cause I did it, too. It's called drunk dialing. You do drunk dialing, and I would call my relatives in Norway, and I'd have this long-winded conversation drunk out of my skull in middle of the night. Like, oh, yeah. Yeah. But to, but you saw, you, you could see that it was out of loneliness and desperation as that- Yeah. you're wanting to make connection with people. Mm. And the s- the, the alcohol is the way to connect you to. Well, the reason why they call alcohol spirits is because it helps you connect to s- or you think it's helping you- Mm. connect to spirit, but it's an artificial connection to spirit, right? Yep. And so- Yeah. but that, that's an amazing insight to see that, to see another person behaving poorly and to have the sympathy and understanding to see that they're suffering. That all negative behavior stems from suffering, and that is a very deep understanding and a universal spiritual truth that all of us, bad behaviors all stem from pain and suffering and fear. So anybody who's acting poorly is, is suffering deep down inside, and to see that is, is, is an amazing insight. And for the listeners, I want you to think about this too. It works also for yourself. For me, I'm better at seeing it in others than I am in myself. Like, for me to stop and go, "Okay, Eric. Oh, well, I did something wrong," I beat myself up or I go, "Okay, well why did I act that way?" And if I look at it after the fact, again 2020, and I was acting out of fear. I wasn't coming from a position of love, I was coming from a position of fear. And so I, I can start to understand that and go, "Okay, well what is the underlying cause of that?" Like, why, why do, why do I have this fear? And for me that- That is like an, I think that's a lifetime exploration, is to figure out and unpack all these lay- like they have the saying in AA, it's like, "Oh, you gotta peel back the layers of the onion." And I'm like, "Ah, I hate that saying." And now I'm like, "Oh yeah, it's true." Like, there's so many layers, like you just keep getting. It never ends. Like, where does it stop, right?

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah, and it's a lot of the suffering. this is a core concept of Buddhism, which is suffering. A lot of people don't understand what it truly means. It's, we don't have to suffer. It's all self-induced, m- majority of it, right? We're talking about attachment, we're talking about fear, we're talking about all the, all the other things. Not to say that loneliness is not a real thing, because it is, right? We live in a practical world today. So I think a lot of the spiritual principles of the past need to be applied to today's world. It's virtually impossible for someone to be sitting there meditating for three hours a day, right? Because we got work, we got careers, we got family, we gotta do things. We're part of a fast-paced society. So things have changed. But I think the core principles, as you talked about, spirituality, I think that is something that is becoming more acceptable to talk about today in the Western world, which I think is very important and particularly for men.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah, and I think, again, for the listener out there, I wanna really make sure they understand the difference between spirituality and religion. For me, I, I see a very clear delineation between the two. Being a spiritual seeker and, again, finding what connects you to your spirit, that's the thing for me. It's like figuring out how your body works, figuring out how your mind works, figuring out how your spirit connects. Not trying to s- pigeonhole everybody into the same category and say, "This is for everybody." It's not. Same thing with spirituality. Spirituality is you're seeking a higher self or purpose and understanding how you're, how you fit in with the universe. Like, how does it all interplay itself? Religion can then become here's the indoctrination, here's the rules, these are the things you have to live by. There's. I see a big separation between the two. Spirituality is much easier to talk about. Soon as you get into religion, then that's when conflict happens and people start fighting over things. But in the spiritual realm, it's more openness, and to have that conversation just to say, "Hey, what connects you to your spirit?" Just to even i- just to even have that conversation now. I'm having that conversation with my daughter. My parents never told me about that. I never knew anything about that. In the past, right? And so for me, that is my grounding agent. That's my kind of my, my bedrock is going, okay, I live in a universe that brought me here for a reason, and I'm here to figure out who this Eric guy is and how I interact in this world, because I find that once I start figuring out who Eric is and fit it into the world and become a contributor, I'm part of. It's no longer a big, scary world. Now I'm here working with my brother Pradeep on something on the podcast, and we're gonna create something new in the world. I'm gonna bring my unique ability. He's gonna bring his unique ability. Let's make something cool, and that's how the universe works. And then so for me, that's kind of my underlying base point. But for me, of course, I had to go through some serious pain and suffering and, and so, like, being unconscious and like being like your dad is, being in the pain of alcoholism and just lost, like completely lost. I just. That baseline understanding your spirit is, I think, so critical to operating from.

Purdeep Sangha: And you talked about it and I, and your, your experience, I think, is so critical, especially doing this podcast, because you, you mentioned something very important, the unconscious part. 'Cause that's essentially what it is. It's not good or bad, it's just whether we, how conscious we become versus unconscious. Unfortunately, it's so easy to become unconscious these days, especially with technology and access to drugs and alcohol, and it's, it's socially acceptable, and there's nothing wrong with that. Get. I like to have a drink here and there. But if when we use it as a coping mechanism, that's when it becomes a challenge, and that's, that's where a lot of men are. In fact, when I wrote the book, The Complete Man, I didn't realize the most popular chapter from the book was on addictions. Like, that was the most popular chapter that we got feedback on, and it was really interesting, not only from men, because there was a lot of women that read the book and ha- are reading the book, and they would provide feedback to say, "Okay, I think I understand my husband a little bit more when it comes to these challenges." Because the way I see w- wh- when we're coming back to spirituality, this is my analogy of it, is if we take a look at concepts such as Buddhism or whatever it may be, Buddhism for. The term Buddha, for example, means enlightenment, and that just, for me, it's turning the lights on. That's what it is. 'Cause we are here, our true self is here. It's not like we have to find it, we just have to turn the lights on, 'cause we're walking around in the dark a lot of times. And so for me, it's if we take a look at our family, and I'm just gonna use my analogy. I have my, my son and my daughter have their own rooms. My wife and I have our room, but we live in a collective household. And let's just say my son reaches a point of enlightenment or consciousness and he turns the light on in his own room. That's his room. It's completely different than my daughter's room. Completely different. And this is really im- important for us as men to realize that we share a room now with the woman that we're with, right? And so that's where we're talking about the concept of soulmates, that you turn the light on, it's not just one person's room, it's both pe- people's room. Now we're sharing our souls to a degree. And then our household is where we all share, right? We turn the lights on in the entire house, so our kids are in that same space, wife, us, extended family might come in. But it's really interesting because we can't expect our. I can't expect my son to see things my way. I can't expect my son to come into my bedroom and be like, "You gotta do things this way." 'Cause his bedroom is different. So for me, spirituality is very much the same way. Everybody has their own bedroom. We have to share a collective house if we're part of the same family, and collective community if we're part of the s- same neighborhood. But outside of that, every person experiences spirituality differently.

Erik Solbakken: That is probably the most beautiful ex- beautiful and simplified explanation of enlightenment that I've ever heard That is awesome. I love the fact that you're mentioning that The Complete Man wasn't just a book for men, but that you got feedback from women on it. 'Cause again, for the Viking Academy, this isn't, it's not, completely focused on men, but I happen to be a man, and you happen to be a man, and we're having a conversation about the complete man, but that's not what the Viking Academy is for, for m- for men and it, for men and women. Like, it's for everybody, right? And, and, and I'm also really hoping it's gonna be a beacon and a guiding light for the younger generation. My son Jake, he's 24 or 22 this year, and he's telling me that his friends are all lost, and they're just, they're trying to find purpose, and I'm hoping that the Viking Academy can be that guiding light for that. And, and, and your explanation of enlightenment and having that room, that, that is such a beautiful visual and a simplified understanding that it is personal, it's yours, but it also impacts others, right? And that's b- that's the part of awakening to one's self and realizing you're part of a collective whole. You're part of this whole framework of life, and that you fit into it, and that I truly believe everybody's here for a reason. By virtue of the fact that you're here is there's a, there's a reason. Like- Perhaps. Sure. it's so so, it's almost funny. It's almost self-evident as you just go, "Well, is there a reason why I was born?" Yeah. "Well, how do I know?" Because you're here. Yeah,

Purdeep Sangha: exactly. It's like going to a restaurant, right? why do you go to a restaurant? 'Cause you wanna eat. Same thing with life, right? You're here. I like that. That's a good one.

Erik Solbakken: , and it's, and, and, so, and, and so for me, the, the exciting part of life now for me has been where I'm no longer feeling like, I'm not feeling like the victim to life. I'm realizing that life has always worked with me, and that's what I loved when I read The Complete Man and was, you're going, there's a reason why you're here, and there's multiple layers to who you are as a man, and embrace it all. Don't, you don't have to be ashamed of other areas. And, and there's parts in the book, especially when you're looking at the woke and the DEI and all this, and, the, the downplay of the masculine, the, the men all over the world. And you stood up and said, "No. Be proud of being a man. Be proud of who you are." I love that. It was so refreshing and it, and I felt good about it 'cause I was like, "Yeah, I wanna accept all of me." That's why, in the background you mentioned on it, if those of you who are watching the video, you can see it. If it's the podcast, visual or audio one, you w- will see what I'm pointing at. But I've got three things on, on my wall. One is a Viking ax, which is em- embracing my body. The other one is my university degree, which is embracing my mind. And then I have in the middle, it's a Viking shield with the, serpent, the world serpent circling around, which is to be an image for my spirit. So my body, mind, and spirit. It's to remind me I'm accepting all of myself now. Right? The fact that I, I'm gonna c- a chartered accountant and I have other businesses and I'm spiritual and I've got physical. All those things, I want people to embrace and love the fact that they're here and h- and that's who they are, and they're, they're here to embrace all of them. And so with The Complete Man was that book that really struck me that you're like, "No- accept you for all of who you are, and celebrate it, and apply it. And so that, for me, is like, it's one of the best books I think any, any man looking for purpose can read and under-

Purdeep Sangha: I appreciate that.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah, it's, we, we are in a tough spot as men these days. Very tough. And I think what you were talking about in terms of your son, that is bang on. We need this. I hope young men are listening to, or will listen to this podcast because it's very important. That generation needs the support, they need the guidance, they need the mentorship, because it's a completely different world for them. They are being told that it's not okay to be men. They are being told. Like, I walked into my kid's school, this was before the summer holidays, and I was talking to his teacher because I taught my son how to play knuckles. And I said- Oh, I

Erik Solbakken: remember. I remember that. And- Yeah.

Purdeep Sangha: yeah, and I, I said to the teacher, I'm like, "Oh, you guys, I'm assuming you guys don't allow kids to play knuckles here." He's like, "No man, that would never fly here." And so those are the kinds of things, boys, and you don't want bloody knuckles sitting in school, but, there's nothing wrong with playing games like that or having arm wrestles or whatever that looks like. That's what boys do. That's what, that's what enables them to test their strength. That's what enables them to show their masculinity. It's very important because now it's also hurting the other side. Women are now not feeling protected by the boys or men that they're around because they don't have the masculinity to be able to stand up and protect themselves, let alone the women. They can't even protect themselves these days.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah. Oh, man. I see something very, not sinister, but something dark in the whole cancel m- masculine movement.

Purdeep Sangha: Oh, yeah.

Erik Solbakken: And i- and then there's a, there's a, there's a level of arrogance in the part of the human psyche in the, shall we call the population, that somehow we know better than, than nature. Mm. That somehow it's wrong to be a man. Like, or it's wrong to be this or it's wrong to be that. Like, so in other words, it's like looking out and seeing the trees and going, " what? Those trees are built the wrong way. They've got the wrong leaves. We're just, we need to cut them all down. Just get rid of all of them." And the earth is sitting there going, "What the fuck are you doing? I made those for you guys. Like, th- that, that's what I'm doing. I'm expressing life itself through this tree." But we've somehow come and said, "No, that tree's gotta go." That's what we're doing when it comes to men, and saying men are wrong, they're bad, they're, like, all these things. And it's that all or nothing viewpoint on the world, which by the way, is like the alcoholic. The alcoholic are, they're an extreme, like, they're egomaniacs with an inferiority complex, right? They're like, it's all or nothing. They're either above or they're below. There, there's, there's no middle ground. And, and s- say, th- I'm not saying that doesn't mean that- Humans as individuals can do nasty things, and there's some things we wanna adjust with a- with attitudes. But just throwing the baby out with the bathwater is, is, is complete arrogance, and it's as if you're saying, "We know better. We, we can design a better world." Like somehow you're gonna design a better hu- Earth than like. It's absolute ludicrousy.

Purdeep Sangha: No, and it's, it is, and I, I talk about this in the book because what determines the difference between a male and a female? It is the human brain at the age of roughly eight weeks where there's more vasopress- testosterone put into the brain that turns it into a male brain. That is biology. That is not society saying, "Oh, you need to be turning into a boy. let's rub your tummy and you're gonna turn into a boy," or, "I'm gonna sing to you a certain way." And you're turning into a boy. That's biology. That is, like, going back to exactly what you're talking about. That's Mother Nature. We don't wanna mess with that because that took, it's. If we take a look at humans, millions of years, but a evolution of ti-, of beings in general, billions of years. I, I love what you said there because I think it's absolutely brilliant. We don't know better than Mother Nature. We can modify certain things, but we can't go against the grain, and this is why I think a lot of guys are having problems, is because if you have a natural instinct to be a certain way and you're suppressing it, that's when anger comes out, and that anger is then seen as toxic masculinity, and termed toxic masculinity. But it's a suppression of masculinity that's the issue.

Erik Solbakken: Yes. I ca- yeah, I can see that. And, and, and the, it's the despair and the despondency and the levels of depression that's out there that my son was talking about. He said, "My friends, they just gi- they give up. They just don't think they can, they just don't think they can win. They can't do anything. They just don't feel they can." Now, I'm really happy 'cause my son is sees it and says, "Dad, that's not gonna be me. I'm not doing that. I'm going to be successful. I'm going to go and see the world." He, right now he's down in the Dominican Republic, so he went down to, he went down to Mexico, then he flew to Colombia, then he was Dominican Republic, and he's experiencing the world. He send me videos every once in a while. He's just, he's engaging in the world and he's engaging in life, and he's filled with this energy. And I am f- been constantly propping him up saying, "Yeah, like, be who you are. And who you are is a good-looking dude, a good ma- good-looking kid, and with physical. And but just take care of people properly and be a nice guy." Like, it's really, it's not that difficult, right? But it's this non-acceptance of who you are and why you're here, and fighting it that's part of the problem. Like, it's fighting who you are instead of accepting that the universe made you for a reason to, to apply it, And I've been going deep down, like, again, into the spiritual world. I've been doing a deep dive into Marcus Aurelius, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and Stoicism, and really when you look at all of them, they all say the same thing. Like most all spiritual teachings and, and philosophical teaching, they all point to the same thing. And so you can see when we start veering and start trying to control and take charge and think we know better, that we create a mess.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah. I, I completely agree with you. And as you were just talking about your son, I'm like, "Yeah, plus he's got a Viking for a dad, so-" Yeah. I'm sure that helps as well.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah, there could be a little bit of art imitating life or life imitating art. No, he's, he's watched me go, but he's also seen me go through my alcoholism as well. Like, he saw that, he saw all that come down and go through all that. I wanted to talk to you about, a little bit more on the book side because there's like the three frameworks that you built in the book, and I was wondering if you could just kind of, for the listeners highlight those three frameworks and, and talk a little bit about it.

Purdeep Sangha: Sure, yeah. I, because, so I'm a research guy, so that's, like ever since I was 12 years old, I've been researching. My background's in neuroscience and performance psychology, so a scientific background. I love that. I'm still doing that today. So I like to figure out what's happening, and experiment, and come up with systems, and that's essentially it. And then be able to verbalize or structure those systems so people can understand, 'cause that's ultimately it. There's no point in having knowledge or anything if people can't understand it, right? So as a, when I was a tutor or, or whatever it might be, I had to explain things to people, and the simplest way to ex- explain things to people was through, "Hey, this is a system," or, "This is a framework." So there are three particular buckets that us as men tend to follow. One is the performance framework, which is we are all. I'm gonna simplify it here. We are built to perform, essentially. That's it, right? We're built to perform, which means that w- if we're out there playing a sport, we wanna be the best at that sport. We're built to do better, get better, evolve, and grow. That's performance, right? Then there's a next level, or the next framework or system, which is the achievement framework, and the achievement framework is getting somewhere. So if we are performing and we're doing all our best, we're training, well, it's like going to the championships if you play a sport, you wanna win the championship, right? You're not gonna bust your hump and do practice and, and sacrifice and suffer and, and do all the things you need to do to lose at the end of the day. If you lose, that's okay, but you're trying to win. So that's the achievement part. All guys are driven to win when they are in their state of masculinity. Key point. But there's something that we tend to forget, and that's on the softer side, right? And that's not just an element of masculinity. There's an element of femin- feminine energy we're talking about, is the fulfillment side, and we tend to forget about that part quite a bit, which is if we're gonna perform, we're gonna achieve, we also wanna be fulfilled in some aspect. Because a lot of guys get stuck on the hamster wheel between performance and achievement, and they never include fulfillment, so what are they constantly doing? They're constantly chasing the next goal. They're constantly chasing the next X amount of money that they wanna make, or the status, or whatever it is, and they never get to a state of fulfillment. So that is the fulfillment aspect. We have to learn to be fulfilled as we are performing, as we are achieving. So that we are not on this constant, there's two ways to be on the hedonic treadmill, or you can say, s- or spinning your wheels. One is to go straight for fulfillment. Yeah, those are the people that love to, we're talking about, the typical, the hell, the orgies, all that stuff, right? Going straight for the pleasure without putting in the sacrifice and then the time. And then there's just getting stuck between performance and achievement, and not focusing on fulfillment. So there's two ways that y- people can get screwed, men in particular. Okay? One is perform and achieve, and forget about fulfillment, or just go straight for fulfillment and not focus on the performance part or the achievement part, which is about growth, right?

Erik Solbakken: I, I, I love that 'cause I wanted to bring that in as well c- with the book, is that you, you don't just say, "Masculine. You're 100% masculine. It's all there." This is that all or nothing, right? It's not all or nothing. It's like life is, when you look at something, it can be good and bad at the same time. That may be a bad analogy of where I'm gonna go here, but there's two sides to each coin and it's, it's not all of one thing or all of another. It's a combination. And m- men have masculine traits as the dominant, but they also have feminine 'cause there needs to be a balance in there. And the w- women are the same way. They're m- mostly feminine with. But they also have masculine. And so there's a combination of both in there, and it's that. It was, in your book, in the techniques to master your thoughts, your feelings, and your energy so that you feel passionate and joyful going forward in life, is kind of something that doesn't get taught to, didn't, didn't get taught to us as the g-, kids of the '70s, right? born in the '70s or whatever. We didn't really have that. It's almost like it's been flipped on its head now, and now the whole conversation is around your thoughts and your feelings, and it's like that's more important. So they've, they've lost the performance and the achievement side 'cause that's just toxic masculinity. You can't have that anymore. Let's just talk about feelings. And you can hear from the tone of my voice where I go on that one, right? I'm a very passionate guy, and I wanna understand my feelings and the rest of it, but when we just go to feelings, feelings are not gonna put food on the table, right? No. It's not gonna put food on the table. It's also not gonna fulfill me either. Because if I, I've went down that road of just, not say alcoholism, you go into that stuff, you're trying to satisfy your needs by just going lopsided, so you're not balanced, right? And then I love the other part that with your frameworks is you've got three, 'cause I believe there's a magic in threes. You, the Father, Son, the Holy Ghost. If you start looking at mind, body, and spirit, it's all there. The threes, and you've got the achievement framework, the performance framework, and the fulfillment framework. It's about combining it all together to make it work for you,

Purdeep Sangha: Because that's when you get true power. Like, that is power. When we're talking about masculinity and being a, a man or, the combination is very important, is we're built to be in a state of power. This applies to women as well, but men power is different, and we know when we're feeling powerful and when we're not. That is a reality, and majority of the times we are not feeling powerful when we are out of whack in one of those three systems or frameworks, right? So when we are performing and achieving, but not feeling fulfilled, we're not in power. Or we're feeling we're going straight for fulfillment, but we're not sensing progress in ourselves or whatever that looks like. It doesn't feel like we've put in the time and effort to be able to get to where we are, so it just feels empty. So that's why it's so important because power is extremely effective as men. Like it's. And I'm not talking about the power in terms of authoritative power. I'm talking about when a person feels at their best, like they can take on challenges regardless of what the challenge is. That's a core concept of the Complete Man. And so at any w- for some minutes when they used to play sports, right? They can go back to their high school days or their college days when they played sports really well and they were kicking butt, they felt like they were on top of the world. They felt like they extremely powerful. But as we get older, we lose a lot of those elements. We lose those states of power, and we gotta bring those back 'cause those are the states that are extremely powerful, and it's also the state that women are most attracted to as well. And it's also the state that children feel the most safety in.

Erik Solbakken: Yes. That is, that is a concept that I continually have at odds with some of the teaching that go on in the school, that is like they need to have rules. Kids need r- they need rules and, and to feel safe. They need to know that someone there is there and protecting them and keeping them safe, but at the same time, internal. It's k- kind of power versus force is what we're talking about here. There's a difference between power versus force. You're talking about that internal power that makes you feel complete as a human, and that you've got the ability to change the things you can. Like, you have some power in your life, but you're not being forceful. Forceful is like that negative part of the masculine, shall we say, where you're forcing it and you're forcing- Yeah. things to happen. Powerful is more having power over your life and who you are and, and knowing who you are,

Purdeep Sangha: right? Yeah. Fo- power is when you are directing, you can say force in the right direction, and they're. We're not talking about resistance. So force is different, right? You're trying to push against the grain when the grain doesn't feel right. That is the difference. Because when you are in power, it's, in, in Daoism, they talk about the way, which is it's the path. It just is. Yeah. And so when we feel like it's natural, like it's in our being, like this feels right, right? That is power. Versus this doesn't feel right, I'm going to force it. That's force. So there's a difference there.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah. There's a beautiful passage in the Dao for those who. It's, or it's, it's spelled T-A-O, but it's pronounced Dao, and I think it's the 49th verse, and it, it could be applied to all politicians. it's like leave people alone and they'll settle down to their own- Yeah. place. Like, be- get, get into the way. Get into the flow of life and allow it to unfold, and things will happen wonderfully and, and everything will be fine. What this, this allowing the universe to unfold through you is, is allowing yourself to accept you as a whole, accepting all of you. And, and I love how you've taken and simplified it down in, in the studies that you've done to try and simplify it down into these three systems for men to look at and say, "Okay, well, where am I, in the framework?" And again, I highly recommend someone goes and, and reads the book and really understands what it's about. It's these frameworks to simplify those three areas, the achievement, the performance, and the fulfillment, so that you can start integrating it into who you are and accepting you for who you are. 'Cause the me- the, I truly believe the universe made all of us for a reason. Case in point, you're here, so why not embrace it and figure out who you are and why or what you're here to do, I was thinking about these three frameworks with the achievement, performance, fulfillment, I'm not sure if it worked with mind, body, and spirit, but I just was looking at performance as under body, and then achievement is like mind, and then the fulfillment is like spirit. Do what? It could almost

Purdeep Sangha: f- It can almost fit, yeah. Yeah. I see that. Yeah, because they're. In traditional times it is, yeah, very similar i- in terms of that approach. So I think, I, I think you can relate it to that for sure.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah. Well, I'm going to. Yeah. 'Cause that's the. We're meaning makers. That's the beautiful part about-

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah,

Erik Solbakken: exactly. human. We make. if anybody hasn't figured this out, humans just make shit up. Like, we- Yeah. just make. It's all made up. Like, everything we

Purdeep Sangha: have- Yeah, it's all made

Erik Solbakken: up. everything is all made up. Life's happening, and we're here, and we're functioning, but we assign meaning to life. Mm. We just come up with ideas and concepts, and we assign meaning to it as if it, this means this is good, or this means it's bad. But realistically, we don't really know, but we just make the shit up, and then we follow our own made-up imaginary rules. I call. I always say to people it's like the old Sesame Street with Big Bird had his imaginary friend, Mr. Snuffleupagus. Do you remember watching? Did you watch any of those?

Purdeep Sangha: Oh, yeah. I did.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I think they ruined the bloody show when they allowed everybody to see Mr. Snuffleupagus anyways. But he was like, he was just, he made it up, and he was his imaginary friend. But everybody thought Big Bird was crazy 'cause they couldn't see him. But then if we all agreed that this imaginary friend was real, then all of a sudden it becomes normal, and then- Yeah that's where our psychological problems come in, is 'cause we've attached ourselves to all these concepts and ideas that are just made up. Do what? It's that attachment, the, the Buddhist teaching is attachment is suffering, right? You attach yourself to something. I love how this book goes straight at, shall we call it, some taboo subjects, and you went at it, That's the first thing I said to you after I read the book, and I was like, "Wow." That, I love the fact that you stood your ground and said, "No, it's okay to be a man." Not only that, but embrace it, explore it, and if you're having problems, it's because you're probably out of whack with one of these areas.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah. And we're always, it's a constant up and down. We're always out of, out of sync, right? But the more in sync you can be, the better life becomes as well, and the better relationships we have, and the better we can be able to raise our kids. And it's never perfect. That's the whole point of being the complete man. It's always a growth journey. And for us, and I think this is. when I take a look at it, e- everything stems from also my grandfather in terms of, i- in his teaching. I'm not a religious person, but- The core aspect of Sikhism, for example, is to be a disciple, to be a learner, and that's something that he taught me when I was eight years old, nine years old, and that stuck with me for my entire life. Always learn from every single situation. Always, every- he said everybody is a teacher, right? That's not his saying, it's an old philosophical saying. Everybody in your life is a teacher to you in some way. And so that's, I applied that to my life, and it's like, okay, if this person, regardless of who it is, what can I learn from this person? 'Cause every person has a skill set or knowledge or insight or experience that I don't have. So what is it that I can take from them?

Erik Solbakken: And I love that on the website I have a quote from Krishnamurti. If who Krishnamurti is, he's long since passed, but he has a quote that has just resonated with me, and it's, "A mind that is constantly learning can never be hurt." Mm. And I didn't realize that Sikhism had that as one of its major tenets, is that you're a disciple, you're constantly. So a mind that is constantly learning can never be hurt, and that is in complete alignment with the Viking Academy, which is be an explorer. Constantly learning, constantly exploring, and a, so the Vikings were always exploring and seeking out new lands and, and trying to figure out what was going on. But they, they were physical and they were mental and they were spiritual, all combinate-, they combined it together, and because of that they lived passionately and purposefully. And, and one other thing in there is just as you were telling me about Sikhism, there's like s- there's this stereotype. If you don't know, if you haven't explored and listened or read it, there's, you only have a preconceived notion of what other s- spiritual teachings or religious teachings are. You have no idea until you go look. So don't judge a book by its cover. Go and open it up and read it. Go figure it out, right? Like, and, and you just spurred me on. It's like I'm gonna wanna s- I'm gonna start diving in a little bit more into Sikhism, 'cause I really don't understand it. But you just, what you just said there was like, oh my gosh, that's like, that's in al- completely in alignment, but I had no idea that was it. Like, that's what it meant, is to be a disciple and to be a constant learner. So again, this is why I'm so excited about the Viking Academy. See, man, I, you get to, I get to have you on board. I get to showcase you and your knowledge and, and give people resources, and then I get to learn at the same time.

Purdeep Sangha: And we get to have an awesome conversation. Yeah. That's the best

Erik Solbakken: part. Like, fucking win, win, win.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Erik Solbakken: All day long. All day long. oh, man. Okay, so you and I are gonna have to talk again, but before we go, can you please let people know where they can find The Complete Man and, and your teachings and if they wanna reach out to you?

Purdeep Sangha: Sure. Yeah. So if you're looking for the physical copy, people can go to completemanbook.com, so that's a simple one. If you're looking for the, digital audio e-book, you can go to completemanaudio.com, and the promo code is victory75, so victory and then the number 75 all together, and you can get 75% off the digital audio and, and e-book.

Erik Solbakken: Awesome. Oh, I like that. I know the listeners will love that. You've got a new website. I saw the new branding.

Purdeep Sangha: Oh, the branding. Yeah, you did. The

Erik Solbakken: brand- Yeah, I did, dude. Like, I, we didn't even get even close on a business side yet. Yeah. But what's your new website?

Purdeep Sangha: So it's purdiepsanga.com.

Erik Solbakken: Okay. Well, what's SangA X?

Purdeep Sangha: Oh, so SangA X, it's kind of the new brand that we have.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah.

Purdeep Sangha: Because through the branding exercise, we said, "What does this all come back to?", what do all the companies come back to? What is everything on the business side? And it really comes down to what we are talking about, the X factor, right? That's really what it is. And there's a playoff there when it's like a multiplication effect, but it's really finding that X factor for whether you're, focusing on the business side or on the personal side. And that X factor is that power force, right? It's the multiplier. It's getting the results. It's feeling the fulfillment. It's all those different things, but that's, that's essentially the brand that we have created f- for that.

Erik Solbakken: Okay, go- Okay, so that leaves us into a perfect segue for me to then rebook a new podcast so you and I can do a conversation about SangA X on The MBA Way podcast, my other podcast for the other business that I have. We're gonna do. We'll set that up for there. But for, the listeners out there, you got it, so you've got the URL for the aud- for the hard copy of the book. You've got the discount code for the audio version. And if you wanna find him, purdiepsanga.com. You're doing coaching for business owners and men, right? Preferably combined of the two.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah, yeah, that's an area, and we do a lot of other stuff, too, business advisory services, but that's, in this context, yeah.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah.

Purdeep Sangha: Work with men, professional men, either in high performance for themselves or, or business growth in it on that side.

Erik Solbakken: Okay. There you go. We got m- many more podcasts in the future. Thanks for being on, man.

Purdeep Sangha: Hey, this was awesome. Thank you for having me.

Erik Solbakken: Thanks for listening to The Viking Academy Podcast. Make sure to leave us your honest feedback by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify. And hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.