Meera Gandhi Reveals How to Conquer Anxiety and Burnout in Her New Book
At a moment when burnout, anxiety, and constant acceleration have become part of daily life, Meera Gandhi is offering something deliberately quieter, and far more practical. Her book, Three Tips: The Essentials for Peace, Joy, and Success, is built not on lofty abstractions or spiritual jargon, but on lived experience, hard-earned lessons, and a belief that peace is not accidental, it is practiced.
Gandhi wrote the book after years of learning “how to take the long way home…” based on the Supertramp song from 1979. As she explains, she had made mistakes, hit roadblocks and gathered wisdom she felt compelled to pass on, “in an easy, sort of non–preachy - but feel-good way.”
The goal was never to lecture, but to offer guidance that people can actually use. “Sometimes when we find ourselves hitting problems,” she says, “then we need to take some time to dig deeper, do some soul-searching, and accept situations and move onto positive solutions.” That acceptance, she believes, is where clarity begins.
The structure of Three Tips is deceptively simple, and that’s its power. The book contains 52 chapters, one for each week of the year. Each chapter centers on a specific life theme and offers three concise, actionable tips. Readers are encouraged to slow down and meditate on just one set of ideas per week, allowing each lesson to integrate gradually rather than overwhelm. “If you meditate on one tip a week,” Gandhi says, “I think you can invite a lesson.”
The topics themselves span the full spectrum of modern life. There are chapters devoted to education, leadership, entrepreneurship, relationships, conflict resolution, balance, abundance, rebuilding, reconciliation, and personal growth. Rather than isolating spiritual wellness from professional ambition, Gandhi insists the two must coexist. One cannot thrive without the other.
Take her chapter on overcoming bias, one of the most resonant examples of the book’s tone. Gandhi doesn’t moralize; she reflects. She acknowledges her own misjudgments and how they backfired. Her three tips are direct: don’t prejudge, always be courteous and respectful even when reservations exist; look deeper, remembering that “the cover is not the book”; and celebrate differences, because they add texture and richness to our lives rather than detract from them.
Another widely embraced section focuses on pacing ourselves through life, an urgent message in a culture addicted to speed. “Slow down,” she urges. “Just a little bit. Please breathe.” The second tip is to stay present, because the past no longer exists and the future is being shaped right now. The third is to consciously set your own pace. “After all,” she says, “we can only live one moment at a time, and that moment is ours.”
The book’s clarity was hard-won. Gandhi initially wrote a much longer manuscript and brought it to a publisher in India. The response was blunt. The editor liked her ideas and her honesty, but told her the book wasn’t publishable. “Come back to me when you have something I’m able to publish,” he said. It was humbling. But before she left, he offered one crucial piece of advice: back up what you preach with real-life anecdotes.
She took that advice seriously. Gandhi rewrote the book from the ground up, weaving in personal stories and reshaping the structure into the three-tips format. When she returned with the revised manuscript, the reception was entirely different. The publisher immediately recognized its clarity and warmth, and the book deal followed.
The deeper motivation behind Three Tips emerged during the pandemic. Gandhi witnessed friends, many outwardly successful, struggling behind closed doors. “We assumed that wealth would shield people from mental distress,” she says, “and it didn’t.” That realization shifted not only her writing, but the direction of her philanthropic work toward mental wellness. “If we don’t have our mental health,” she says simply, “we don’t have anything.”
Gandhi is candid about her belief that America is facing a mental health crisis. Stress levels are at historic highs, social connection is eroding, and the pressure to constantly perform is relentless. Yet she also sees hope. Meditation is on the rise. People are redefining success. Some are turning away from corner offices rather than sacrificing their health. “People are waking up,” she says.
What Gandhi hopes readers take away from Three Tips is not perfection, but perspective. “If they can be even a little shifted,” she says, “sometimes that’s all it takes, to look at your situation differently and find hope.” In a world obsessed with more money, more speed, more achievement, her book offers something radical: enoughness, one week at a time.
Website: https://www.meeragandhi.com/.