Dragos Bratasanu: The Amazing You

Interview with Dragos Bratasanu: The Amazing You

by Dirk Terpstra

Dragos Bratasanu is an award-winning scientist, international speaker, and filmmaker. Dragos Bratasanu holds a Ph.D.Magna Cum Laude from the Center for Sensor Systems in Germany. He started from a humble beginning in Eastern Europe where he lived as a student with $100 a month for five years. Today he travels the world and empowers thousands of people to make their dreams a reality even if they start with almost nothing. At 24 years old and fresh out of university, Dragos Bratasanu started from nothing, organized and traveled alone on two expeditions to the North and the South Pole. In the summer of 2015, Google and Singularity University selected a few people from around the world to be part of an entrepreneurial venture at NASA AMES in Silicon Valley.

The program brought together future leaders and entrepreneurs to create solutions that solve major global problems. He is the writer and filmmaker of the award-winning movie THE AMAZING YOU and the author of Sleepers: A Little Book on How to Find Hope, Meaning and the Courage to Fall in Love with Your Dreams.

As a speaker, he’s been on stage on five continents, empowering people to live their dreams even if they start with very little. His work is endorsed by NASA legends, rock stars, New York Times bestselling authors and renowned entrepreneurs.

A few years ago Dragos Bratasanu put his Ph.D. in a bubble wrap in the closet, left his unfulfilling corporate job and took a walk on the wild side of life. His sole purpose now is to empower people all over the world to live their dreams, especially when they start with very little. Because Dragos believes that whoever you are, and wherever you are, you matter.

“Are you familiar with the pain of having a dream and not knowing how to make it a reality? I am too, and surely all of us have felt it many times. But this doesn’t have to be this way. A few years ago I gave up on everything in life to make The Amazing You film, to empower people to make their most cherished dream a reality, even if they start with very little.”

Dirk Terpstra: After I had watched Dragos Bratasanu’ movie The Amazing You, I knew I wanted to speak with him. I saw so many similarities with my life, of how I moved away from my corporate career to pursue what I do now. But I also see how he uses his heart and his intelligence to contribute to the world in a beautiful way. Not so long ago I reached him at a beautiful retreat in New Zealand, and we talked for over an hour about his work.

Dirk Terpstra: You often speak about your truth, but I know many people who have a hard time finding out what their truth is. How do we find our truth?

Dragos Bratasanu: I think this is a great question, and the answer is twofold. The greatest confusion in life comes from mixing the levels of existence and the levels of thinking. For example, when you ask yourself: “What do I want to do in my life?” Then people might say that they want to be a director of a certain company for example. But that’s not how it works.

The first layer, the foundation if you like, is usually a fuzzy feeling, like a big fluffy cloud that fills your heart when you think about it.

Imagine that you lived two hundred years ago, and you were looking at the sky. You could tell yourself that it would be so cool to be able to fly. And that thought about flying would just fill up your entire heart. It could be your purpose in life actually to learn to fly. But it’s still pretty fuzzy – you have no idea how to do it, but when you think about it, it makes you triumphal.

The second layer is thinking of how to transform that basic layer into something real within the limits of your context. If you lived in the 1800’s, you would probably take a bike and attach some wings to it. That was the mindset and the knowledge you had available at that time

You would attach some wings to a bike, fly off a cliff, and you would probably kill yourself. Enthusiasm is the fundamental layer when you think about it, and your heart is filled with the desire to fly. But then the competence comes as a second layer to figure out a way of how to live your enthusiasm. So the passion starts in your heart, and then it’s wise to add a layer of thinking to it of how you are going to make this into a reality.

I spent seven years traveling the world and working with some of the best minds from Google and NASA, people who are driving the innovation and help move our world forward. I also visited the Buddhist monasteries in Nepal and the monasteries in Greece and the distant land of Russia.

I could never understand why a spiritual person can’t think and why a scientist cannot pray. Why do we have to separate those two disciplines?

We can’t cut a part of who we are as human beings and expect to feel fulfilled and happy. You can’t remove the mind and expect to be happy, and you can’t take off your heart and expect to be happy. And this is ancient wisdom that goes back to the time of Jesus, who was teaching his disciples that the moment you marry your emotions and your thinking, that’s the moment when you speak to the mountain and the mountain will move away.

Right now, you might have a passion for flying.

The same passion and enthusiasm as two hundred years ago, but the thinking is different, the competence is different, the mindset is different, and so the entire context is different to make this happen.

But if you just push the heart to follow the thinking, that doesn’t work. You both need the enthusiasm and the competence to become successful and feel fulfilled at what you do.

It’s important to realize that there are 900 million people in the world, in 142 countries, who are working, who have good jobs and salaries, but they are not engaged. They simply do not care for what they do. Just imagine for a moment what 900 million people can do in this world if they commit themselves to doing what really matters to them. So when asking: “What’s my truth?” Maybe think of, before you die, what do you really want to accomplish? And then accept, without any judgment, the uncomfortable answer that will come. Because we all have access to answers that can guide our lives, like asking the question “If my life would end at this moment, would I be happy and feel fulfilled with how I have lived it so far?” The answer that will come to you will always be true in both mind and heart.

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It’s a lot harder to live with lying to yourself, than with standing up for who you are and standing your ground for what you value and finding a way to do it.

Dirk Terpstra: That’s a great explanation. Thank you. You are an engineer with a degree in satellite intelligence. You’ve won various awards for the excellence in your work, but you started to make a movie, and to write a book. Where does your passion lie?

Dragos Bratasanu: Yes, I will be continuing my journey with The Amazing You because it gives me a greater sense of fulfillment than working on software for space projects. People are joining my seminars and tell me their stories. For example, about a dear one who recently passed and how The Amazing You Movie has helped them a lot. I have also had people from Syria writing me to let me know that the movie is so powerful and that it can change the lives of students after the difficult years of war. I never imagined all this, but every single feedback like the ones I just mentioned keep me going and help me stay on track.

Dirk Terpstra: That’s beautiful! So you are living your dream?

Dragos Bratasanu: Well, it’s not always easy. When you think of all the business matters, that’s extremely challenging on my journey. It’s much easier for me to join a large aerospace company and work there. But I chose this path because it gives me so much more fulfillment.

Dirk Terpstra: Are you currently working on a new project?

Dragos Bratasanu: Yes, I just launched The amazing University. This is a very exciting project and is all about living your truth and making your dream a reality, even if you start with almost nothing. It’s never about the money. Money is just a means to an end, but there are different means to the same end.

When I traveled to Antarctica as a student, I didn’t have any money and so I spent about eight months to figure out how I could raise funds to afford my trip, and what I could offer them in return. It did take me eight long months, but I did find a way. So there is always a means to an end, even if you don’t have the resources. You just have to think clearly about who are the people who have what you want and what you can offer them in return. And then just do it.

Please visit Dragos Bratasanu’s website: www.drdragos.co

Dirk Terpstra is an Intuitive Speaker – Inspirator – Coach and certified HeartMath® Trainer. His passion is to inspire you to become more deeply connected to who you truly are so that you can become the most beautiful version of yourself. We are part of a society that teaches us the principle of cause and effect so well that most people have learned to react mainly to the circumstances in their life, while everyone can create their own, amazing and more fulfilling life – just by being who you truly are. Dirk believes that the secret lies in hitting the breaks, really slowing down, and learning to understand ourselves better. You can only be at peace, feel fulfilled and be valuable to others when you are honest with yourself and start closing the gap between who you appear to be, and who you are. You will then discover that you are beautiful and that all the answers already lie inside of you.
http://dirkterpstra.com