Blank Stares

Have you ever felt like you were too much for others? Like you were speaking another language from those around you as you received blank stares (again)? 

I grew up in Punjab, India. I didn’t understand why other kids my age wanted to talk about cricket scores. I wanted to talk about the stars or why people get angry. 

Maybe you took refuge in the pursuit of knowledge like I did. I buried myself in books to feed my insatiable curiosity. No one else seemed to share that love, and I learned early that being different meant being alone. 

At home, my parents misunderstood me. At school, I was either bullied or “befriended” to help someone get better grades. Craving any connection, I preferred the latter. 

In high school, an extended illness kept me from studying until 10 days before final exams. Failure seemed inevitable. To everyone’s surprise, including mine, I ranked first in my class. 

That day, I proved to myself that no matter how bad things seemed, I could push through alone. I didn’t need anyone’s help or support. But deep down, I wanted someone to truly understand me. 

Even after this stunning performance, I once had a teacher admonish me for questioning if I was a “genius.” They said that word was not inclusive and I should never use that word to describe myself (or anyone else). Confused, I wondered why we talked about champion athletes in sports, presidents and prime ministers who lead nations, and honor Nobel laureates. Why wouldn’t we acknowledge extraordinary intelligence.? 

Logic vs. Love 

As an adult, technology fascinated me. When it was time for college, my parents didn’t want to pay for a fancy university. I ended up enrolling at the equivalent of a local community college. I lasted X days before dropping out. 

I headed straight to the workforce, where I thrived, working on some of the largest and most complex technology projects in the world.

At Microsoft, I dove deep into the complex problems that impacted millions of users globally: big data, cloud computing, and AI-powered automation. The complexity excited me. The challenge drove me.

Later at Pearson Education, I worked on massive digital transformation projects that impacted how millions of students learned and how teachers shared knowledge. 

And yet, I still hadn’t learned the most basic lesson of all: the importance of emotional intelligence. 

I’d built systems that connected people across the world, but I felt completely disconnected from those near me. I thought I was doing everything right, but I had to learn the hard way that real connection requires more than sacrifice or logic. It didn’t matter how smart I was or how much I knew. If I couldn’t understand others and they couldn’t understand me, it was all in vain.

Surrounded by some of the world’s most brilliant minds, I still felt like an outsider. Most of my Microsoft colleagues had fancy degrees from Ivy League universities. Harvard. Stanford. Yale. They valued my ideas, but I wasn’t one of them. In their eyes, I was just a wannabe.

Worse, I was distant from my spouse. I’d left everything I’d ever known to move to Canada, hopeful for that longed-for connection. Yet, without understanding how love worked, cracks developed in our relationship. Silence replaced laughter. Conversations became transactional. 

What was the point of intelligence if it only created distance from others?

Studying Human Behavior

After receiving stunning blows from the 2008 financial crisis, I immersed myself in financial data. I analyzed patterns and historical cycles, trying to understand how something so catastrophic happened without warning.

I made a profound (to me) realization: this went deeper than just numbers. It was about human behavior. Panic, greed, fear, and confidence were all encoded in the data. Understanding the patterns could help predict outcomes.

I wondered if maybe intelligence was more than just knowing more and solving problems. What if intelligence was understanding patterns instead? Instead of solving technical problems, I was learning about human emotions to solve problems. 

The desire to study human behavior led me to delve into machine learning, data science, and AI-driven analyses. At the time, the practical implementation of AI was still in its infancy, but I could see where it was going.

AI could recognize human behavioral patterns everywhere. From the way businesses operated to how entire industries evolved based on the way people behaved. Could AI bridge the gap between logic and emotion? What if AI could help me bridge the gap between me and others around me? 

I knew I’d found the next frontier. I gained notoriety. People admired my work. They saw my strategies and the results I produced. But no one saw me, the man behind it all. 

Despite having solved some of the most complex problems in business, I couldn’t solve the problem that mattered most: why did I still feel so unfulfilled? 

Fundamentally Flawed

I’d always believed if I just kept pushing forward, eventually, I’d feel complete. But that never happened. 

My son was born in 2010. From the moment I held him in my arms, I felt something different. This wasn’t a project or a challenge to overcome. It was pure, unconditional love. For once, I wasn’t thinking about the next solution. Instead, I just felt. Here was the connection I’d been searching for all my life! 

But something changed. When I reached out, he turned away. He squirmed when I held him. When he was upset, he only wanted his mother. Logically, I understood the reasons for this, but I couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong… with me. 

This wasn’t like other challenges I’d overcome. No amount of hard work could force my child to reach for me instead of his mother. I couldn’t solve this intellectually. Nor could I understand why it hurt so much.

Until then, I’d spent my whole life believing other people didn’t understand me, and that’s why I felt so alone. But here, a newborn, who knew nothing of the world, was rejecting me. Maybe it wasn’t everyone else. Maybe I was fundamentally flawed. 

Everything started to unravel. After years of pushing, fighting, and proving myself, I was constantly exhausted. In 2011, I reached a breaking point. I wondered:  What if I wasn’t meant for this world? Would it be easier if I just disappeared? After years of finding solutions, now I was the problem. I was depressed, suicidal, lost. 

Ancient Solutions to Modern Problems

Like any rational person, I went to experts who prescribed talk therapy or pills. But those were only bandaids. I consulted astrologers and palm readers who explained my troubles originated in the stars or the lines of my own hands. Thanks. I felt more hopeless. 

Desperate, I tried meditation. It seemed ridiculous. How could sitting in silence doing NOTHING help someone like me? I’d tried everything else, so I sat down, closed my eyes, and focused on my breath. For once, I listened to my mind. 

What I discovered changed everything. My thoughts weren’t random. Like everything else in the universe, they were programs running loops in the background.

In short, the subconscious mind was just like AI. It stored data, learned from experience, and followed instructions – whether they were the right ones or not. My mind had been running faulty programs. 

I’d spent my life believing I was alone, which kept making it true. So, if my thoughts created this reality, could I reprogram them to create a new one? I started applying AI principles to human potential, becoming my own experiment.

I finally understood how I created my reality. I’d struggled to connect with people and felt like an outsider because I was shrinking myself to fit into a world that wasn’t built for people like me, like us. I’d been trying to live by other people’s standards. 

Through research and testing, I discovered that high intelligence must be paired with self-image, relationships, and emotional mastery. I learned about Kundalini energy, an ancient concept of a dormant spiritual force that, when awakened, brings profound transformation. 

My mission shifted from building businesses to building people. 

A Mission to Help Other Geniuses Soar

Then life hit me with another lesson: in 2018, my mother died. We’d always had a rocky relationship, especially after I left India. But I’d always believed someday we’d fix that. But that someday never came. We never know when our time will run out, and we don’t get second chances. 

Suddenly everything I’d learned about relationships and human connection took on a sense of urgency. How could I help others realize what I had? What could amplify human potential at scale? 

One day, during meditation, a thought – no, a command – shot through me like a lightning bolt: Help 20 people win the Nobel Prize. Not for my own recognition but because ideas shape the world. If I could help a few misunderstood geniuses unlock their full potential, they wouldn’t just win awards; they’d change the world. 

I also faced another lightning bolt realization: my 25-year marriage had been broken for a long time. Now we were on different paths. It was yet another learning experience about the importance of relationships: one I had to face as a man, but more importantly, as a father. 

It pushed me even deeper into my mission: I needed to help brilliant minds grow. I started a framework that combined intelligence, AI, human psychology, and global impact. I tested the framework with a few people in several businesses: music education, site inspections, orthotics, and mining. 

The early results were staggering, not just for the organizations but for the individuals leading them. Yes, they experienced financial success within weeks, but they also slept better, had vivid dreams, and found new superpowers within themselves. 

Imagine

Now, it’s time to roll it out to the masses and rewrite how the world sees intelligence. But I can’t do this alone. Unlocking brilliant minds everywhere is a global mission. 

The greatest challenges we face today will not be solved by average thinking. It requires extraordinary minds to solve them. Lifting ambitious minds will amplify the impact they create in business, society, and the economy.

If a kid from a small city in India with no fancy education or elite connections can pontificate this potential, what can some of the most prestigious intellectuals in Mensa imagine? With the right tools and the right connections, we’ll create the next generation of world-changers. 

Imagine nurturing brilliance instead of ignoring it; connecting gifted people instead of isolating them; and allowing ambition to flourish instead of forcing it to conform. Imagine no one ever feeling the heartache and pain that comes from being a genius. 

All this is possible if we unlock the human potential now and then use AI to amplify it. Tetranoodle is already doing it. 

I invite you to join the revolution.