The Two Territories

You know what I realized? There are two territories in life, and we keep using the wrong tools for each.

First territory is relationships. Your wife. Your kids. Your aging parents. The stuff that’s intangible, emotional, can’t be measured on a spreadsheet. This is where nothing material is at stake but everything that matters is.

Second territory is career. Money. The CEO role you want. The house you’re planning. The net worth target. This is tangible. You can measure it. You can track progress.

And here’s the thing - most of us use our brain for the first territory and our heart for the second. Then we sit and wonder why relationships feel like shit and career feels stuck.

Move: How We Get This Wrong

Listen to any corporate discussion about career growth. You’ll hear emotion everywhere. “I deserve this promotion.” “They don’t appreciate me.” “I’m underpaid for my capabilities.” Pure feeling. Pure desire. Nothing wrong with that.

But ask them what they’re actually learning. What skill gap they’re closing. What action they’re taking beyond complaining. Silence.

This is what happens when you bring heart to career. Desire with no structure. You want the outcome but you’re not building capability. You’re busy feeling undervalued instead of asking what value you actually added this year that you didn’t add last year.

Now flip to personal life. Your wife is frustrated about something. Your brain immediately jumps to solution mode. “Why don’t you just do this?” “Logically if you look at it…” You’re being helpful. You’re being smart. You’re also killing the relationship one solution at a time.

Or your kid wants to talk. But your brain is still processing that vendor negotiation from afternoon. You’re there physically but mentally you’re somewhere else. The relationship suffers not because you don’t care. It suffers because you’re using the wrong operating system.

See: Two Meditation Techniques

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra has 112 meditation techniques. Two of them map perfectly to these two territories.

First technique is simple but hard to do. When you feel an emotion in personal life, bring it to your heart. Not your head. Don’t analyze it. Don’t strategize. Don’t cleverly manipulate using your intelligence. Just feel it in your heart first, then respond.

Sounds weak, right? We’ve been trained to think through everything. But relationships don’t run on logic. When you speak from a clear heart, you might sound blunt. Might sound rude. Even arrogant. But you won’t sound manipulative. And you won’t carry that residue of unsaid things that slowly poison everything.

I’m not good at this naturally. My default is to think through personal situations like business problems. But every single time I’ve managed to pause and bring the feeling to heart first, the conversation goes different. Not easier always. But more honest. And in relationships, honest beats clever every time.

Second technique is for career, for material goals. And it’s actually old wisdom. Iccha, Gyan, Karma. Desire, Knowledge, Action. Not separate. Synchronized.

You want to be CEO? Good. That’s Iccha. Now what knowledge does a CEO need that you don’t have? Not the title. The knowledge. Can you read a P&L and see what it’s not telling you? Do you understand how different functions create value or do you just know the jargon? Have you actually led a team through crisis or just have theories?

This is Gyan. Most people skip this part. They jump from desire straight to entitlement. “I should be CEO because I worked hard.” “I deserve promotion because I’ve been here five years.” That’s not how it works. Universe doesn’t reward your feelings about what you deserve.

Then Karma. If you have desire and you know the knowledge gap, what are you doing about it? Not planning. Not thinking. Doing. Which companies are you learning from? Which skills are you building? What are you reading that’s actually stretching your thinking?

When all three sync up, the goal becomes inevitable. Not easy. Inevitable. When they’re out of sync, you end up bitter.

Reflect: Right Tool for Right Territory

Look, these aren’t competing approaches. They’re tools for different domains.

In personal relationships, your heart is smarter than your brain. It doesn’t calculate. Doesn’t keep score. Just responds from clarity. That’s not weakness. That’s the only way relationships survive without slowly dying from accumulated dishonesty.

In career, in material achievement, you need structured thinking. Desire without knowledge is daydreaming. Knowledge without action is just intellectual exercise. The synchronization is what separates people who achieve from people who complain.

The mistake we make is mixing them up. We bring emotional reasoning to career discussions. We bring analytical thinking to family conversations. Then both feel unsatisfying.

Two territories. Two techniques. The practice isn’t mastering either perfectly. The practice is knowing which tool you’re holding and which territory you’re in.

Stop thinking through your heart. Stop feeling through your brain. Use each where it works.​​​​​