The Internet to the Inner-Net: Five Ways to Reset Your Connection and Live a Conscious Life

The Internet has become humanity’s invisible central nervous system, connecting us at the speed of thought. More people today have access to mobile phones than have access to clean drinking water. Yet the most important technology is still the one within us: our brain, body, and consciousness.

A fast-paced career in the high-tech industry combined with a deep yoga and meditation practice has allowed Gopi Kallayil—Google’s Chief Evangelist for Brand Marketing and one of the leading voices encouraging yoga and mindfulness in the workplace today—to integrate his inner and outer technologies to a remarkable degree. Wisdom from his yoga mat and meditation cushion guides his professional career, and his work life provides the perfect classroom to deepen his wisdom practice. The Internet to the Inner-Net guides the rest of us to do the same. In some three dozen wide-ranging, sometimes provocative essays, Gopi shares his experiments in conscious living and offers insight, inspiration, and rituals—including yoga, mindful eating, and even napping—to help us access our own inner worlds.

If you’re looking for grounded practical wisdom that might simultaneously help you become more creative, adaptable, enthusiastic, effective, or resilient, you’ll find it in this user’s manual for the technology within—along with colorful insight into the successful Google culture. In five sections, from “Log In” (which offers mindful ways of connecting and engaging) to “Clear Out Your In-Box” (shedding what doesn’t serve you to make space for what does) to “Thank You for Subscribing” (a reminder to live with gratitude), Gopi lays out practices and perspectives that you can use starting right now to live with more purpose, fulfillment, and joy.

Gopi Kallayil is Chief Evangelist for Brand Marketing at Google, helping grow customer brands through digital marketing. In his prior roles he worked as Chief Evangelist for Google+ for Brands and led marketing teams for the company’s advertising products AdWords and AdSense. Before joining Google, Gopi was on the management team of two Silicon Valley venture-funded startups; while a consultant with McKinsey & Co., he worked on engagements helping large corporations improve performance and maximize revenues. He has also led information-technology projects for global corporations in India, China, and the United States.

Gopi earned his bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from the National Institute of Technology in India and received MBAs from the Indian Institute of Management and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. An avid yoga practitioner, triathlete, global traveler, and Burning Man devotee, he has spoken at TEDx, Renaissance Weekend, the World Peace Festival, Wisdom 2.0, World 2.0, Wanderlust, and Yoga Journal LIVE! He hosts a TV program on cable and YouTube called Change Makers. He founded a yoga program for Googlers, called Yoglers, and leads yoga practices every week at the Googleplex. He has also released a music album, Kirtan Lounge, that celebrates the bhakti yoga musical tradition of joyful Kirtan singing. Website: www.kallayil.com