08: Dr. Sapna Samant - Optimizing Your Personal Journey & Individualism

The Life:Optimised Show

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you had gone down a completely different path to what you chose? Do you ever look at people who seem to have lived such an outrageous life, that you wonder what goes on in their head, and why they even bother? Do you wish you knew how to trust your instincts and live more true to your own expression, and not have to worry so much about what the world around you expects you to do? On this episode, my friend from New Zealand, Dr. Sapna Samant, and I talk about our respective journeys away from traditional expectations, and pursuing a life that is a truer expression of ourselves, despite enormous amounts of pressure to confirm to a particular lifestyle or image. We also explore and reflect on ideas of optimizing your personal leadership to handle the seduction of becoming externally validated, and how people fall prey to materialism whilst never really enjoying what they actually achieve and attain. Sapna opens up with her wealth of wide ranging experience, from being a practising GP to working in media, arts and journalism as a film-maker, back to a career in medicine. And I open up and share some experiences and insights from my own journey that I've never spoken about with anyone before. This is one of most raw, open and honest conversations I've ever had so listen in now! --- Sapna Samant was born in Bombay, India. After practising as a GP for nine years, she got very bored of it all, moved to New Zealand in 2001, and decided to explore other parts of her brain - leading to a Masters in Film, Television and Media Studies from the University of Auckland. Sapna worked as a freelance producer for Radio New Zealand until 2009, produced her own show for Radio Live, produced and directed a documentary film, and produced and wrote a short film, revelling in her love for writing. In 2012, with the encouragement of "we need people like you to be doctors", Sapna decided to try her hand at medicine again and sat the three exams required to requalify, clearing them all in her first attempt. She currently works as a GP in Cannons Creek, one of the most diverse, complex and poorest areas in New Zealand. "This is my dream job as a doctor, because it is about serving people and not making money. When I worked as a doctor in Bombay it was all about net profit and that was one of the main reasons I was put off the idea of continuing as a doctor." Sapna describes herself as a free-spirited soul, a wanderer, a dreamer, a deliberate exile. Blessed with excellent health, high education, a very good brain and abundant energy, she believes her karma then is to transfer all of it to this world for the betterment of humanity; the journey is to harness this force for optimum use while purifying it at the same time. The destination is unknown in spiritual terms but only death can be the end point in this life. You can follow Sapna on Twitter at http://twitter.com/drsapna. You can visit Sapna's blog at http://drsapna.wordpress.com. You can read Sapna's short story published in Ingenio Magazine at http://www.ingenio-magazine.com/upside-down-by-dr-sapna-samant.