Dandapani - The Power Of Unwavering Focus: How To Achieve True Freedom & Happiness

Full transcript: Dandapani on London Real

0:48 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Dandapani, the Hindu priest, speaker and entrepreneur.

1:05 After graduating from university with a degree in electrical engineering, you left it all behind to become a monk under the guidance of one of Hinduism’s foremost spiritual leaders. For 10 years you lived a life of personal discipline and daily training at a monastery in Hawaii. Today you work with some of the most successful entrepreneurs and athletes in the world, helping them understand and leverage their minds by empowering them with the teachings that have been used by Hindu monks for thousands of years.

1:31 Your new book, The Power of Unwavering Focus, explores how worry and anxiety are making countless people across the planet sick and preventing them from achieving true freedom and happiness. You believe that by mastering the art of concentration, everybody is capable of living the life they’ve always dreamed of, free from mindless distractions and unnecessary stress. Dandapani, welcome back to London Real. Thank you so much, Brian. It’s an honor to be back and looking forward to our conversation.

2:02 Yeah, me too. You know, you were originally here back in 2016, then you came back in 2019. You spoke at our massive summit event here in London, and I just checked, you know, our conversations have been watched like 30, 40 million times. Seriously? Are you serious?

2:20 I’m sorry. Yeah, it’s like our episodes, and people took pieces of our episodes and then made more videos out of them, and I just took a look at them on YouTube. It’s like 3 million, 5 million, 11 million, 20 million. There’s something that happens when we get together or when you start talking. I love it.

2:38 That really resonates with people, and so yeah, I think you’re doing amazing, facilitating a great conversation. Good. Well, we’re gonna have another one today, and I guess I wanted to kick off and maybe ask you this kind of self-reflection question. Why do you think, Dandapani, that your message or your delivery or your energy or your experience resonates so much with so many people? Because it clearly does.

3:04 I would say a couple of things. One is that it comes from a place of selfless service, you know. When I lived in the monastery for 10 years, one of the vows we took, you know, the ways of life that we lived, was selfless, with no intention for personal rewards. So my goal, when I put these teachings out there or share what my guru shared with me, is the idea is how can I help somebody? So I have no intent of gaining anything from it.

3:31 Obviously yes, I sell products, I make money, I need the money to run everything that I do, but the intent is always there to help others. So, and that’s the first thing, and then the second thing is to make it as simple and clear and understandable as possible for everyone. So I don’t try to impress people with things that sound impressive, but people listen to it and go like, “Wow, that sounds amazing,” but I have no idea what to do with this. So I try and keep it really simple so people can understand and then implement in a sustainable way.

4:01 And I think I think those two things make it very appealing to people, and it’s one of the feedback, that two of the feedbacks that I get quite often as well. Yeah, I would agree. I would say that there’s something about the energy you bring to the knowledge that you impart that has that kind of selfless service. This is someone who’s just trying to give it, give the world the lessons you learned through your life and having this incredible experience as a monk, which we’ll talk about, but also it doesn’t seem to have an agenda and you’re not trying to be some guru.

4:36 You’re just trying to tell people how it is for you. And I remember at the, at the event, at our summit in London, someone asked you from the audience, they raised their hand and they said, how do you feel about money? And you’re like, I love money. Money is great. It allows me to do all these things.

4:50 And everybody in the audience was almost shocked because they expected you to say something different, but you were totally congruent with how you believe, and people find that, I think, really refreshing about you, that you can be real and a monk but also be practical. It’s a fascinating combination. I don’t know if you remember that, but I do. I remember that very clearly. Yeah, and I also shared, you know, when he asked a question, you know, one of my mentors had a chat with me that profit is for the purpose of impact, and I think, you know, the more money I make, the more resources, financial resources, I have to create impact in the world, whether in people’s lives or in the lives of, in environmental impact.

5:31 So for me, you know, and I think people’s relationship with money is very skewed, and a lot of times with spirituality, people think that if you’re spiritual you shouldn’t be pursuing money or material gains. There’s nothing wrong with it, you know. There’s nothing wrong with money. I mean, it’s how you use it, right? If I use it to buy drugs or traffic humans, then yeah, not so great, but if I use it to do good, then why not make as much money as you want?

6:01 Yes, you can. I agree. I mean, we have an academy, we’ve had since 2015, and I teach lots of aspects about business and finance, and I’m telling you, Dandapani, one of the biggest problems my students have is a dysfunctional relationship with money, and they feel like money is bad or dirty, and, you know, so many of my students, because they would never allow themselves to create a profit, they found themselves constantly struggling and struggling to make an impact in their business, struggling with their family, and when I kind of gave them permission to make a profit, they’re like, “Oh wow, now I can take care of my family and I can help thousands of more people.

6:38 Wow, actually I can kind of get over this.” And like you said, some people, like if they’re in the meditation space or the movement space or the spiritual space, it feels to be not congruent to also be okay with money, but I think both have to go together if you want to make an impact. Yeah, and that old saying, you know, money is the root of all evil, it’s just a ridiculous thing, you know. I mean, everything good that’s being done in the world today, whether it’s environmental things or helping people or feeding people, often it just is run by money, and if you didn’t have money you couldn’t run all of those organizations and all those impact work.

7:14 So you need money, and there’s nothing wrong with having the intent to make money. Yeah, as long as you can kind of always try to clarify that relationship with money, for sure, of not having it and then having it as well. I think we found your second book as well, it’s gonna be The Power of a Relationship with Money, but right now I want to talk about All right. Right, I’m telling you, there’s something there. Yeah, we could co-write it together, but we’ll talk afterwards.

7:38 This new, this book, The Power of Unwavering Focus, it’s incredible, it’s fascinating, and again it’s very Dandapani, as in you put real-world actionable simple ideas and techniques that you mastered in the monastery over 10 years into people’s hands where they can take action with it. But I wanted to ask you before we get into it, why write this book now? You know, why now? Is it a state that the world is in? Is it that you’ve kind of decided it’s time to put these ideas together?

8:07 But I’m curious, why now? You know, I never really wanted to write a book, and people often said to me, if you write a book and it gets published, then you’ll be an expert in the field, and I never look at myself as an expert, and I know publishers will refer to me as an expert so they can sell more books, but I look at myself as a student. I’m always learning about the mind. I can always learn to focus better. So a few years ago I created online courses because I felt that that could reach a lot more people than books.

8:36 I can change it, I can, it’s digital, you know. I can always modify and grow it, and, you know, my wife and a few close friends, they really encouraged me to write a book, and hence I just put in a book, and you know, the whole process of writing the book took me about three, four years, and I think the whole exercise helped me clarify everything very clearly. I wrote it three times. I wrote it once, I rewrote the whole thing again, and I rewrote the whole thing again.

9:06 And so this is, even though it’s the first edition, it’s actually the third edition of writing this, which is great. I think all exercises helped me clarify my thoughts and put it. My question when I was writing a book is like, how is this going to help somebody? And that was always my mission of the purpose, right? Someone should be able to pick it up and be able to use the tools in a very simple way to change their lives, and if it fulfills that then I fulfill the goal of writing the book.

9:34 Yeah, I started writing a book, I think about two years ago, and again it’s it’s a much more arduous process than anyone realizes. I think when Tim Ferriss was here in the studio he said it’s the loneliest thing you can do is write a book, and again in this world where there’s a million books published every every year, right, you know, your book has to cut through probably in the first five pages for anyone to pay attention to it, and then it’s got to be super value-add for that even to change someone’s life. and you know that when you’re writing it, right?

10:02 So you’re probably thinking, man, this has to be good, it has to grab people, it’s got to be communicated well, and it’s got to be effective. So I’m guessing that was on your mind when you constructed all of this. Yeah, I know for sure. And then the intent, right, they intend to really how can I serve the reader, you know, how can the reader benefit from this? And that was just really the primary thing I held in my mind throughout the whole process, and that’s why after writing the first time I went like, it’s not good enough, and I wrote it again, and then I wrote it a third time, and obviously it can be improved on, but you know, holding that intent, this has to serve the purpose.

10:39 If not, let’s just write a Harry Potter or some, you know, fictional book that people can just read and enjoy, but the goal of this book is not for that. The goal is for people to change their lives with the tools within it. Yeah, good for you, man. I’m so glad you did. You know, I want to jump into some parts of this book and some of the ideas, but you know, I remember one of the big things I remember from our conversations over the years is you talking about concentration, Dandapani.

11:02 I remember you talking about even when you were sweeping one of the huts in Hawaii, you know, your guru had said, concentrate on what you’re doing, concentrate on the sweeping, concentrate on the task at hand. And I remember you were the first person to ever talk about that on my show, before or since, about concentrating on whatever you’re doing, even if it might be a quote-unquote mundane task. You were all about that concentration, and that seems to go throughout this book, and I was wondering if you could talk about that, because most people would say, why should I concentrate on brushing my teeth, or why should I concentrate on running on the treadmill?

11:40 This is just something I have to do in order to do the things in my life that matter. But you don’t really look at it that way, do you? No, I don’t. And at the end of the day, the first thing we need to do is really define what’s the impetus for learning to focus. And for me, the impetus, the greatest impetus for learning to focus is that we only have one life.

11:59 Even though I’m a Hindu and I believe in reincarnation, I know in this life I’m Dandapani, who knows what I’m going to be in my next life. And if I have one life and I know that my life is finite, not short, meaning that there’s a clear definitive end to it, then how do I want to live that life? My goal is at the end of my life to be able to look back in my life and go, that was an amazing life. And for me to be able to say that, I need to first define my purpose in life.

12:24 I have to have my purpose define my priorities in life, meaning who and what’s important, and then I need the ability to stay focused on those priorities. When I can be focused on those priorities, be present in those priorities, the byproduct of that is I live a rewarding life. Now that’s my impetus for living a focused life. I don’t want to get to the end of my life, Brian, and look back and go like, I should have done that, I wish I did this, I wish I did that, which is most people.

12:50 I don’t want that. I know I only have one shot, I don’t get a second chance. So the ability to define my priorities and purpose and the ability to focus allows me then to know that I lived an amazing life. Now the ritual of practicing focus throughout the day is one way to bring the practice of focus into your whole life, to make it a routine, a ritual, so that you become good at it, right? And I gave an example, I think, on your show previously of, take Usain Bolt, the sprinter, right?

13:24 I don’t know much about him, but, you know, the fastest man on that still holds the record for 100 meters. I’m assuming his whole day when he was competing was a ritual, like, you know, he drank water, he exercised, the weight training, running, sprinting, whatever it is, all for 9.56 or 9.58 seconds. His whole day supported that. So this, I look at it the same way. If I’m spending two hours with my daughter every day, what can I do the remaining 22 hours that helps me support supports me being focused when I’m with her, so that I can get the most out of the experience with her?

13:59 And hence I bring the practice of ritual into brushing their teeth, sweeping the floor, stapling paper, whatever it is I need to do, I bring that practice into it, so when I’m actually with the people I love, doing the things I love, I’m completely present and getting the most out of it. Okay, and so by focusing and being concentrating on the stapling, the sweeping, the brushing of the teeth, it conditions you to be just constantly focused and concentrating on whatever you do, so then when you’re with your daughter, you are like, your brain is almost trained to be a hundred percent with her. Exactly.

14:37 If I, if I’m distracted all day long, Brian, and then I, I go for 28 hours a day or 22 hours a day and then I spent two hours with my daughter, how can I expect it, how can I expect to be focused? And if I can’t be focused, I can’t be present. If I can’t be present, I can’t enjoy being with her. I can’t feel her emotions, her reaction, see how she’s behaving, talking to me, listen to what she’s saying, right? I want the most out of my time with the people I love and the things, doing the things that I love.

15:07 In order to do that, I need to be able to focus, then I can say at the end of the day, wow, today was a full day. I spent time with my wife, it was completely present, spent time with my daughter, I was on my property in Costa Rica working on stuff, I was completely present, I had a full day. If I get run over by a bus at 10 pm at night, I can go, like, I’m good. Yeah, yeah, you know, I lived a full rewarding day, right? And the reality is probably most people are just partially present throughout their day or thinking about a myriad of things at all times during the day.

15:44 So the phone is buzzing and beeping, they’re anxious or stressed about their money, they’re stressed about something that might happen, some news article they read somewhere else. So that means they’re not concentrating on their workout, their family, their work, their purpose, the sunshine, and so you kind of bump around in this kind of agitated, mediocre existence, and that’s what I guess you’re trying to prevent people from living in, basically, and then getting to the end of your life and you go, what was that all about? You know, and Brian, we talked in our first show about how the mind works, how there’s awareness in the mind, that the mind doesn’t move but awareness is, you could imagine of it as a bright ball of light that travels within the mind, and wherever awareness goes, that area of the mind you become conscious of.

16:30 So if I’m sitting and talking to you or having dinner with you, a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, you’re chatting with me, if my ball of light is somewhere else, thinking about my project in Costa Rica or thinking about some email I need to get back to, I’m physically present with you, mentally I’m checked out, and I think a lot of people are that way. You can sit with them, physically you’re always present because your body can’t go away unless you get up and walk away. So physically I’m with you, but mentally, are you present?

17:00 And if you’re not present, then what’s the point of even being there? Yeah, Dandapani, I get spoiled because so many of my interactions are like this, right? So a lot of times, you know, we’re on camera, we’re like, it’s so, I get locked in with someone like you for 90 minutes, and I’ll be honest, when I go sometimes meet friends out and, you know, it’s at a place that’s noisy or they got their phones out, honestly I usually have people come meet me here because that way we can sit and have a quiet, focused conversation.

17:29 So I’m a bit spoiled in that sense. I can tell when someone’s not present and I would rather not be there with them. I’d rather be alone, actually, than be with someone who’s not with me a hundred percent. Is that strange to say? No, I take the same attitude.

17:44 Look at it this way, right? I would say to you and your audience, if you had three hours to live and you knew you only had three hours left and someone asked you for 10 minutes of your time and you made that decision to give them 10 minutes of their three hours, and in that 10 minutes of speaking with them they were constantly checking their phone and being distracted, would you want to be there? You wouldn’t. When you shrink the time, you increase the clarity of focus.

18:11 We all think we’re going to live forever, so we’re willing to waste time with sitting down with people who are constantly on the phone, constantly being distracted. I don’t look at it that way. I wake up every morning and go, my clock is ticking. I don’t say it’s short, but I know there’s a clock somewhere that says Dandapani underneath and it’s counting down. I don’t know how many hours on that, but I know it’s counting down and it’s going to hit zero one day.

18:35 So if I’m going to give you a few minutes of those precious minutes that I have the very least I expect from you is your undivided attention. You know, that’s all I’m asking for. Be present. And if you can’t, it’s okay. I’m gonna go do what I need to do, you go ahead and do what you need to do.

18:52 But if I’m gonna give you what precious few minutes I have in my life, and I’m just going to ask for yours as well for your undivided attention, that’s not too much to ask. No, it’s not. I have like no time for anybody who’s on their phone when I’m with them. And I know you have a whole set of thoughts on technology, and we’re definitely going to get to that. Maybe we start with purpose because you know, they don’t teach us this in school, I don’t think, so at least in the Western world, where they sit down and have us define our purpose, which is kind of a shame because it seems like one of the most important things in life.

19:23 I think you say in the book that happiness is not a purpose, but whereas, I mean, a purpose can bring you happiness. Can you talk a little bit about that concept? Yeah, so, you know, I grew up in Asia and they never taught you purpose, finding purpose, in school, and, you know, I grew up with parents that always said to me, mom and dad only want you to be happy, and, but happiness is a byproduct of the experiences you have. So if I sit down with one of my best friends and have a glass of wine with them or hang out with them, the byproduct of that is happiness.

19:56 I spend time with my wife and my daughter, byproduct that’s happiness. I’m working on my project in Costa Rica, byproduct of that has happened. So how do I craft a lifestyle where the byproduct of that lifestyle results primarily in happiness? Obviously it can’t be a hundred percent happy, this life doesn’t work that way. So my first question is how do I design that lifestyle?

20:17 In order to design that lifestyle I need clarity of purpose, because my purpose can define my priorities, my priorities then in turn can define how I structure my lifestyle, which is who I spend time with, what I eat, what I read, what I see, what I listen to, what music I listen to, literally everything. But if you don’t have purpose, then you can’t define all of it. I mean, look, look at London Real. You’ve defined the mission of it, the style of it, the branding of it, it’s just so clear.

20:49 If I go online I see some guy ripped your video off and it’s showing it, as soon as I see the background, you know, the quality of it, the phony, I know it’s London Real. But because you define clearly what it is you want, you’re able to then define everything else, what quality video, what backdrop, the quality sound, everything. So life should be the same as well. Define purpose first, that then defines priorities, then focus on those things, the byproduct of that, you live a rewarding life.

21:24 And for people to find out that purpose, how do they do that? Yeah, and the sad thing is we never talk, right? So ideally you find someone who can guide you because it’s hard to, you, we don’t know what we don’t know. So I would say there’s a couple of ways. If you’re spiritually or religiously inclined, your religion can define your purpose.

21:45 So I’m a Hindu, in Hinduism we define the purpose as a person’s purpose in life as self-realization or enlightenment through deep meditation. I go within and I experience divinity inside of me. Now a Christian in a particular denomination may say the purpose of life is to serve and love Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. A Buddhist might have something else. So if you’re spiritually, religiously inclined, you may turn to that to see what your religion defines as your purpose in life.

22:15 Now if you’re agnostic or atheist, I always say that your core purpose in life should never be dependent on someone or something, because if that someone or something goes away, then you have no purpose. So if you’re agnostic or an atheist, you could say, for example, my purpose in life is to be the best version of myself. Now you could do that and pursue that even if you had three days left to live, you were bedridden. You can go within your mind and say, yeah, you know, I remember 70 years ago I fought with my uncle and I never resolved that, I’m still carrying that grudge, I should really deal with that right now and not take it into my wherever it is I’m going.

22:52 So that allows you then to keep working on things regardless of who or what’s in your life. Yeah, yeah, and ideally you find someone who can help you lay out the path to discovering it, but I would say strongly, Brian, that I encourage, that’s one of the first things people do in life is figuring out your purpose in life. Same way, I would imagine, with London Real, life, you want to define what the mission is. Yes, if not, you’ll never be as successful as you are now.

23:20 Yeah, it’s funny how you bring it back to this because we’re almost 11 years in, and you know, it, I didn’t know the purpose in the beginning, but I knew the intent, and then later I defined it as a purpose, but the intent always was to have these amazing conversations and also introduce these fascinating people to the world, and I was always there to be of service to almost to them. So when you sat down with me that first time in 2016 in the studio, it was like everything we do, from the lighting to my questions to the piece of content we produce, is to put your essence into the world so other people can benefit from that, and then every decision around that is based on that purpose, and then it becomes really clear what we do. It’s simple, and then we can do it almost with ease because it’s defined, and since I’m being of service and I’m doing something I love, everything else falls in place.

24:11 Isn’t that crazy how that works? Yes, and then, you know, once you always tell people, once you know what you want, you know what you don’t want, and you also, you know, who you don’t want making decisions, because like you say, it becomes so simple. Yeah, the one thing I want to bring up, Brian, if it’s okay with you, about purpose here is that you know, I see a big problem in today’s world, and maybe I’m wrong about it, but you know, if you ask most teenagers or young people, what do you want in life, most people have absolutely no idea, and the common thing that’s being said to them is that you don’t need to have it all figured out so early in life.

24:45 I disagree. I feel that we should teach our children how to find their purpose as early as possible so that you can spend the rest of your life living in alignment with your purpose, because like you said, everything then becomes easy, making decisions becomes easy, and everything that you do is so rewarding and joyous, as opposed to spending decades trying to find what it is you want because life is apparently all about the journey and not the destination. I disagree.

25:15 I say define the destination, then it’s about the journey because now your journey is in alignment with the destination. And you know, Lewis Carroll has a beautiful saying: if you don’t know what you want, if you don’t know where you’re going, then any road will get you there. And I feel that’s how most people live our life, and we say to teenagers, we say to young adults all the time, it’s okay, you don’t need to figure out what you want in life, you know, just go out there, experience things, discover.

25:41 The more confused you are, the more you repeat that in your mind, the more pattern of confusion builds up, and it doesn’t get resolved. It’s not that confusion leads to clarity. Figure out what it is you want early, and parents should take the responsibility of helping the children define their purpose in life. What are they passionate about? What do they love?

26:04 And help them get into that narrow and deep lane of what drives them every day, wakes them up every day, and gets them into that place where things just happen with ease. There’s so much clarity every day and there’s so much reward every day. Wouldn’t that be a better life to lead than a life of searching? No one likes looking for anything, that’s why there’s Google. No, I agree with that.

26:29 And I guess my next question is, do we all know deep down inside what we should do? Is it really just about connecting with that essence of ourself through meditation or through whatever it is? Because some people say, I don’t know, and it’s like, you probably do know, maybe you’re just too distracted by all these things around to connect with that. But do you think everyone knows deep down inside what they want to do or need to do? I completely agree with your statement that I think everyone knows and they’re too distracted, and the other thing is they don’t spend enough time, and I think if someone has the ability to focus and be self-reflective long enough, they would get to see within that what it is they’re passionate about.

27:11 We are so externally focused, our heads are buried in phones all day long, looking at other people’s lives, hearing other people’s thoughts and opinions, that when do we ever spend time in self-reflection? We, this is our third interview and we probably about clocked maybe three hours of talking for us talking, and, you know, we’ve chatted in your office and stuff. The more time we spend with each other, the more we get to know each other. People don’t spend any time with themselves, Brian, so how would they know what they want or what they need, let alone their purpose?

27:47 Yeah, yeah, you’re totally right, you’re totally right. It’s all in there if you would just spend some time with yourself, which most people find very uncomfortable, which is why the phone comes out whenever you’re alone for, for one minute, right? You hardly see anyone standing at the subway or the bus station not looking at their phone, because like you said, to look within means you have to face everything that’s nice about you and everything that’s not nice about you and not nice parts and very uncomfortable.

28:14 Yeah, and yet those will give you the direction you need if you can face them, right? Exactly. And the best perspective to take with that, you know, Brian, is to look at, I look at myself as a building under construction. There are nails, rebar lying around, broken cinder blocks. I’m still a work in progress, so I’m okay when I look inside of me and I see the mess.

28:34 It’s fine, I’m working on it, the building’s not done yet. Yeah, so that allows me then to have self-empathy, self-compassion, and patience with myself as I continue the construction of me to be the next better version of myself. But if you don’t take that approach, then you don’t have empathy and compassion for yourself, and then looking at yourself becomes very uncomfortable and very painful. Yeah, you know, you mentioned kids, and I have kids, and my daughter’s 18, my boys are five and six now, and now they have access to not only the internet but the mobile phone 24/7 and the Instagram feed, and what that seems to tell, my old equivalent of that was MTV, like in our day, back in the day, where you would look at it, but you know, when you look at it, you know what really seems to be rewarded on those feeds are money and bling and this and that.

29:27 And how do you stop our kids and even our adults from getting hijacked by the wrong message of what’s important? And I went down this path for many years of my life of thinking that money would make me happy, that’s all I needed was these things, and then it didn’t, and then I had to find a way to serve and do other things, which is why I’m doing this right now. But how do you stop people from getting hijacked onto the wrong value system? I would say start with service, because that’s where monks start in their training, and that’s why service, selfless service, is such a big thing within the monastic communities, not even within Hindu monks but Buddhist monks or Christian monks, because when you think about service, you’re thinking about someone else and not yourself.

30:10 You know, and social media gets you always to think about yourself: how many likes can I get, how can I portray myself, how do I look, do I sound okay, do I look okay, it’s about me, me, me, me, you know. And let’s think about others. So one thing I try to slowly do with my daughter, she’s only almost four now, is to get her to start thinking about other people. Do you want to share your toy with this person? Do you want to give, you have so many toys, would you like to give, let’s give away one of these toys.

30:40 Would you like to share your food? And she’s getting that. So start thinking about the people around you and that will start to allow us to shift our focus with all the things that’s being thrown at us in social media, and you go like, well, none of these things is about serving others, so let me shift my focus now to things that are about serving others, and in monastic training that’s where we start, selfless service. Yeah, I love that, I love that. All right, let’s talk about a couple more points in the book, because you go pretty heavy on these four favorite things, which are worry, fear, anxiety and stress, and it’s something that anybody listening to us right now has probably experienced hours of it during the day.

31:24 Again, back to the mobile phone, and we’ll get to your thoughts on technology, is that they’re constantly beeping and buzzing and giving us clickbait to click on to get us stressed about events all around the world that probably have nothing to do with us. How do you get people to think about these concepts and how do you get your head around these concepts? So for me, again, goes back to the first part of our first interview and also the first part of the book, where we talk about awareness in the mind and how we’re not the mind, rather we’re pure awareness moving to different areas of the mind.

31:55 So to look at fear, to understand fear, we can look at, we need to understand time. In a simplified view of time we have the past, the present and the future. You can’t feel or worry anything in the past, it’s already happened, there’s nothing you can do about it, but you can worry about the consequences that may occur in the future. But fear is actually, and is actually future-based. So for example, I get the story in the book where my guru was seven years old in 1934 and he was coming home in his family car in Lake Tahoe, it was snowing really heavily, and he was really worried he was going to miss his favorite radio program, and he saw his awareness traveling into the future in his mind, creating a situation in his mind where the car got stuck in the snow and his father couldn’t get it out and they missed their radio program.

32:40 Then his awareness came back to the present and started worrying about this experience he conjured up in his mind, and that essentially is what fear and worry is. If you look at your life and you think about everything, you make a list of all the things you actually fear about and worry, you’ll see they’re all future-based and you’ve conjured them in your head. In the eternity of the moment, as my guru says, I’m all right right now, you’re totally fine right now.

33:06 All your fears and worries is future-based: he’s going to leave me, you know, I think she doesn’t like me, I think she’s going to go with that guy instead of with me, I think my business is going to fail. It’s all future-based. Once you can control awareness in the mind, you can overcome fear and worry, but you need to understand the first part of awareness in the mind. So the next time you’re feeling over anxious, scared, fear and worry, you should first of all be aware of that, then realize that it’s a, it’s an awareness issue, realize that’s all future-based and that it’s probably overdone.

33:42 Yeah. Now at one point, can you take that to the extreme, or can you, well, then you don’t worry about anything, is that possible? You can. So it’s not like I don’t worry about anything. So you know, I have this big project in Costa Rica, and so my awareness can go into the future and get concerned about something.

34:01 Then what I do is I bring, I create a situation in the future that may be problematic, I bring my awareness back to the present, and then I go, how can I solve for this? And that’s the difference, right? So a lot of people allow the awareness to go into the future, create a problem, come back, and repeatedly worry about that problem indicated in the mind. I love, let my awareness go into the future, create a problem, come back, and now I solve it. So for example, I’m creating a restaurant, I let my awareness go into the future, I see six months from now on a Friday night it’s completely busy, now create a problem in the kitchen where there’s a fire in the kitchen.

34:34 I’m like, oh my god, what are we gonna do, busy Friday night? Awareness comes back to the problem and I go, okay, how am I gonna solve this? Well, I need a sprinkler system, I need a fire extinguisher, two exits over here. Now I don’t have to worry because now I created the solution for that problem. And that’s the difference between worry and allowing awareness to repetitively go to the future into a problem and come back, that’s worrying.

34:57 Fear or creating a problem in the future, let awareness go there, identify that that’s a potential problem, come back and create solutions for that, that’s very different. That’s not fear and worry. Do you think some people are addicted to fear and worry and there are dealers out there? Absolutely. Maybe they’re called news sites.

35:16 There are dealers in fear, worry, and people are addicted to it, right? Which is a strange phenomenon to be addicted to something that’s, well, bad for you. I guess that is an addiction. But yeah, maybe speak on that because it’s a commodity these days, isn’t it? Yes, and if you broke the mind down into three parts, there’s the intuitive part which is the superconscious area of the mind, there’s the subconscious which is the intellectual area of the mind, and then the subconscious mind which is the instinctive area of the mind, and in the instinctive area of the mind, this is based on Hindu philosophy, in the instinctive area of the mind the highest state of consciousness for the animal nature is fear.

35:54 If you can keep your ball of light in the fear area of the mind, you have control over the animals. I don’t know if you’ve ever been next to an elephant, you know, it’s huge, it’s strong, it’s tall, this is a strong beast, but I’ve traveled in Asia so much and you have this scrawny little man sitting on the elephant that’s ruling the elephant, and you go like, how’s that possible? Because he’s put the fear of God in an elephant, in the elephant, you know, he’s beat it, he’s hit it, he stabbed it.

36:26 The elephant’s so afraid of the scrawny little man sitting on it that now this instinctive animal will just do whatever the scrawny man sitting on it tells it to do. So I feel the fear dealers that you talk about, the news sites, keep society in this instinctive area, of this animal nature of the mind, state of fear, because it’s so much easier now to control the animal when they’re afraid of you. As soon as they move from the animal nature to the intellectual nature where they start reasoning and processing and thinking for themselves, then they go like, hang on a second, I don’t quite buy what you’re trying to tell me, now you have no control over them.

37:05 Same thing religious organizations do too, Brian. I’ve been in the religious business for a long time. I sat on the other side of the altar more than I’ve sat on your side of the altar, and I’ve seen religious people, heads of churches and temples and synagogues and, you know, do the same thing, keep the congregation in the fear of the mind so you can get them to do whatever you want. God will strike you down, Brian, I’m telling you that, so you must support my organization, you need to put money in the box, you need to do this, we need to do that, and then you control your congregation.

37:41 It’s been happening for hundreds of years. Right, right, so if you’re imparting fear or being the subject of fear, you’re always going to be in that kind of low energy state or in that animal brain. And yeah, and in a weird way, that’s a place also where you don’t have to think about your own problems and shortcomings too. So in some ways it’s nice to go there because all you can do is be scared or angry, but if you find yourself there you’re probably not going to ever go above that.

38:09 No, and you know, you brought up a great point, Brian, and because the animal, all he wants to do is know there’s food being served at a certain time, like the dog knows, you know, it’s time to eat, and then I have a place to sleep at night, and as long as I’m comfortable and safe and I have food and I get to sleep, then I’m good, and you don’t have to think about all the other problems, and that’s the nature of the animal nature of the mind. Keep people there, you can control them. As soon as you start to educate them, they start to think for themselves, that’s when the problem begins.

38:41 Right, right. And so if you catch your brain going to these spaces, you need to try to pull it back and just say, okay, there I go into my worry, my anxiety, my stress, my fear, I need to pull back and realize that this is just an awareness issue, find out where I can solve it, and then get back to being present with myself, concentrating on what’s happening now and try to get kind of back on track. Is that some of the lessons here? Yeah, for sure. And for fear, worry, that’s the solution, right?

39:14 If awareness goes into the future, starts indulging in potential problems, bring it back to the present, focus on what you’re doing, or create a solution for the problem that you’ve just conjured up in your mind. Anxiety, anxiety and stress is different. Anxiety and stress comes when you allow your awareness to jump from one project to another to another to another to another in an unresolved way. You’re like, oh my god, I have to send a check for project A, two sec, two minutes later you go, I forgot to sign the contract for project B, a minute later you go like, I never sent the Zoom meeting link for project C, and this awareness jumps from all your task lists of the things you need to do throughout the day, anxiety starts to build in you, and prolonged states of anxiety lead to stress.

39:56 Bring awareness back to the present, tell yourself thinking about something doesn’t actually get it done, make a list, focus on one thing at a time, get it done, and go through your list. But as soon as you allow awareness to jump through that list, anxiety builds. And you know, one simple exercise everyone can do is make a list of 10 or 15 things that you need to do today and start shifting your awareness between them and see how quickly you start to feel anxiety.

40:23 It’s a simple way to conjure up anxiety in your life and to see what causes anxiety, and once you realize how anxiety is created, then you know what to do not to create it. Right, yeah, got it, got it. That’s the way to go back to the concentration, one thing at a time, fully present, fully concentrated. Yeah, the opposite of that is thinking about everything and then you become anxious, and then yeah, okay. You do, right?

40:49 I mean, look how many things you have going on, right? You have interviews, you’ve got your classes, you’ve got your academy, you’ve got your online stuff going. If you started to go through the list of all those things plus your family things, plus your personal things, you start to go like, oh my god, you know. Yeah, but if you just focus on one thing at a time, then it doesn’t build anxiety, and then once you decide, I’m done with A, then shift your awareness to B, work on B for however long you want, whether it’s two minutes or ten minutes, and then shift to C, just take that approach.

41:18 Yeah, when I’m having a good day I’m doing that. So I woke up this morning, I get my meditation done, I have my cold shower, I saw my son Caden, I goofed around with him, was totally there with him, got dressed, said my affirmations, I’m off to work, working on fixed projects, I just went did some break dancing, preparing for you, now I’m here with you, when I get done I’m gonna have another meeting, I’m gonna go home and see these boys again, and if I’m concentrating and present with each one of those tasks, then when I get done at the end of the day I’m like, wow, that was an amazing day, I did all these really cool things, I feel like I was there and present, I didn’t kind of half do anything. Yeah, those are actually my best days, you know, just like you say in the book, when I’m actually focused and concentrating on those things, even if it seems mundane, at least I’m there with that piece, and then it’s not mundane, right?

42:10 No, it never becomes mundane, and that’s the beautiful thing that my Gurudeva taught me, is that brushing your teeth, everything that you do is part of your precious life. So as soon as you say it’s mundane, now you’re dismissing those few minutes of your life which are precious minutes that you’ve been blessed with. So I want every pube, every second of my life to be full and enjoyable. Yeah, that’s fascinating. All right, you have something in the book that you call wings of the mind, which you’re saying is distraction, which is the mental plague, and now we’re talking about technology, phones and the internet, and I want to talk about this because you, I mean, you know, you’re a forward-thinking monk, we know how you feel about money, and we know you love technology, you got your app, so it’s not like you’re anti-tech, but talk to me about how we deal with this, you know, pervasive technology in our lives.

43:06 Yeah, and also just to clarify, I wasn’t wrong for 10 years, I’m a priest now, right? So I’m married with kids, just, so the way I look at technology is, you know, one thing I get often said to me is people come up to me at events and stuff, Brian, and they hold their phone in my face and they go, these things are ruining our lives. And my response always is, these things are not ruining your life, it’s your inability to exercise discipline around the use of them that’s ruining your life.

43:33 So it’s a beautiful piece of technology. I can call my mom in Australia right now and see her face and laugh with her and talk to her, that’s amazing, to have that ability to do that from the jungle in Costa Rica. And but we don’t, we allow technology to use us and we don’t control technology, and the goal really is to control technology. Technology is here to serve us, and that’s probably the best way to look at it. So the way I look at technology is how can it help me fulfill my purpose and my priorities in my life, and that’s what it’s here to do, it’s a sermon to me.

44:08 I’m not a servant to it, and if you take that perspective then I think we make better choices with how we interact with that technology. Most of us are addicted to our phones, I mean we really are, and again I’ve been an addict so I know what it’s like to be addicted. And sometimes, you know, you look at these devices that are, you know, custom designed and built by some of the smartest people in the world, you know, with billions or maybe trillions of dollars, it’s almost like a customized little smart drug that can be buzz and beep and variable rewards.

44:39 And I’ve had Nir Eyal on the show who I think was at the original event that I saw you at out in California, and we know these, they can design these things. So knowing that, as humans how do we detach from something that’s designed to keep us actually in this anxious state? Defining purpose, defining purpose of life, why am I here on this planet, what’s my purpose in life, and then reminding yourself that you only have a finite amount of time in life. You know, I had somebody ask me once on the pony, how often do you think about dying?

45:09 And I said, I hardly think about dying, but what I do think about every single day is that my time on this planet is finite, and that drives me to decide how much time I want to spend on my phone. Do I want to just scroll through TikTok? Do I want to scroll through endless Instagram Reels, feeds, Facebook? No, my clock is ticking, and that’s so real to me, Brian, it really is so real to me, and that forces me to shift my awareness from scrolling through endless amounts of Reels to things that make me happy, you know, because none of those things fulfill me, and they’re endless, right?

45:47 They’re endless, little hits of whatever they do to you, I don’t know. it just doesn’t fulfill me. So the fact that I only have a finite life is my greatest impetus, and I think it is, should be a great impetus for everyone, because all of us have a finite amount of time. How old are you, Brian? I’m 51.

46:06 You’re 51? Yeah, so just say you live up to 96. So that gives you what, 45? Oh yes, yeah, it’s, if you think of it that way, the clock is ticking, every minute, looks like the clock is ticking. I’m aware.

46:23 Yeah, so I don’t want to spend time on Reels looking at some idiot dance in some way. No, doesn’t do anything for me. I’d rather spend that time with the people I love doing the things I love. Yeah, and we always know when we’ve done something that doesn’t serve us. It’s like when you eat the box of donuts, when you binge-watch the Netflix for four hours, when you’re scrolling through the Reels, afterwards you’re like, uh, that didn’t feel good, like you, know, if you’re honest with yourself and present with yourself, you’ll get the feedback and you know, this is something not right about that.

46:50 I think I had a guest on that. Sorry, just really quickly, and that’s why early on in the first couple of chapters in the book I have one lesson called Make the Case. You really need to make the case to yourself, you need to sell it to yourself that your life is finite, and that needs to, that will then drive your, where you focus your energy and time. Yeah, unless you sell it to yourself and you don’t buy it, there’s no impetus to stop watching endless amounts of Reels or scrolling through feeds.

47:23 Yeah, it’s very important. And I had a guest on my show back in the day, Mike Dolce, who used to train a lot of the fighters in the UFC, and he said every action you take during the day is either getting you closer to your goals or away from your goals. He said every single action. What a great statement, huh? Yeah, what a great statement.

47:39 Yeah, yeah, it’s back to, you add to that also everything that you think throughout the day, right? Yeah, yeah, what are you thinking throughout the day, instead of taking you towards your goals, away from it, and that’s even more important. I mean, you have a chapter here called The Ineffable Mind, and you say it’s the world’s most powerful tool, and you know, a lot of people have heard that before, but they probably haven’t really sat and really been with that concept.

48:06 And you just made a great point there, I just met action, but you said even the thought, we allow our brain to beat ourselves up all the time with negative talk, to spend time pursuing all these crazy pursuits and fears and anxieties that have nothing to do with us, and that’s the one thing that can actually change our future more than anything else, right? And we live with it 24 hours a day, Brian. We can’t detach ourselves. I don’t see my wife all day, I don’t see my daughter all day, but my mind is with me when I’m awake and when I’m asleep.

48:40 So the first step is learn about the maya’s book and learn to harness that mind and focus that mind, because if you don’t, it’s like that gentleman said, you know, it’s going to either take you towards your goals or away from your goals. Yeah, and if it’s taking you away from your goals, you’re going to get to the end of life and go, that wasn’t a very rewarding life, and it’s too late then. I hate to say it, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it at that point.

49:03 I just don’t want to be in that place. Yeah, Jeff Bezos has something called his regret minimization hypothesis, and it was all about the deathbed. He didn’t want to get there and look back on his life and have regret, and so he’s like, I’m gonna go do these things and take these risks and have this purpose and have this long-term timeline just so I don’t have that day of regret. And again, just getting in touch with that finite sense, that purpose, that every action is toward that, and it’s a powerful thought.

49:34 You talk about drugs in this book, and I’m really glad that you called it out because you know, it’s something that I thought a lot about. I spent a lot of my life as an alcoholic, I had an overdose from heroin, I’m sober now, and it’s something that I think about a lot. And you call out the fact that we need to not be on drugs and not necessarily put our kids on drugs, and I’m guessing it’s a way of saying you need to be present with you and your mind because that’s where the answers are.

50:01 I want to get your thoughts on that, but when I look back at why I had these struggles, I think I was trying to get away from pain, and that’s why I would go to medicate myself. But now that I look at it, that actually stopped me from getting where I needed to go fast enough. If I had actually been with the pain and been with that, I think then I would have actually learned and found that I was doing the wrong things and connected with my purpose. And so now, when I’m ever in that point where I’m like, this really sucks, I don’t want to be here anymore, the old Brian would have gone to have shots of tequila.

50:33 I’m like, okay, let’s be present with it, and strangely enough I find I can resolve things much quicker than I used to. Your thoughts on drugs? Yeah, specifically in the book I talk about ADD and ADHD, right, and people being diagnosed with that, and then the first response. So first of all, let me say that there’s nothing wrong with being diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. The question, what I’m challenging is what do we do about those, like that diagnosis?

51:04 So do we drug people right away, drug kids right away? Or if ADD is attention deficit disorder, having trouble keeping attention on one thing by awareness and one thing, then that means a person is distracted, is having trouble concentrating or focusing. Shouldn’t we then try and teach them how to concentrate and help them to practice concentration so they can be good at it? Now if teaching them and helping them practice over a period of two or three or four years doesn’t work, then maybe drugs potentially could be a solution.

51:39 But do not train somebody, teach somebody and help them practice it, and just drug them. I think that’s incorrect. You know, when parents come up to me and says, you know, I had a man come up to me, and I mentioned the story in the book, he says, you know, my son has ADD, he’s been diagnosed with ADD and now he’s on drugs and I’m really unhappy about it. And I said, look, I’m not a medical doctor, so I don’t fully understand ADD, but tell me what’s the essence of the problem?

52:04 He said, essentially my son can’t concentrate, you know, he’s easily distracted, so the doctor diagnosed him with ADD and put him on medication. Then I asked him, I said, have you ever taught, if your son can’t concentrate, have you ever taught him out by concentrate? There’s no. Then I go, why would you drug him then? If your son couldn’t play the piano, would you drug him for that?

52:25 If your son didn’t know how to put food in his mouth without hitting it, hitting his lips and his chin and dropping it all on the floor, would you drug him for that? It’s not a, I don’t think I’m making a bad argument here. Yeah, it worries me how much kids are medicated these days. I mean, that wasn’t happening back in the day. Adults, right?

52:45 And also adults. Yeah, true. So we never taught this in school, so I feel, you know, like going back to what you were saying in terms of how you responded to challenging times, I feel also so much of when we are growing up, we’re never taught about life, we’re never taught, like you said earlier in the show, about finding our purpose in life, learning about our mind, we’re never empowered with tools, so we grow up not having anything at all, then we run into a crisis in life, so we tend to what we see around us, which could be sex, drugs, alcohol, and I don’t blame people for turning to any of those things because I go, have we even given them an alternative?

53:31 Have they even been shown an alternative? So someone has a problem and they tend to sex or drugs or alcohol and go like, well, they’re not to be blamed. No one’s ever given them a second option, no one showed, that I’ve shown them another way. Who sat down with you, Brian, and walked you over here, showing you how your mind works, how to handle challenges? No, you turned to what you saw around you.

53:54 You went to that place and then you worked yourself out of that place, and over the years you’ve learned and grown and changed your life, which is an amazing example, but most people aren’t as blessed as you to be able to do that. I remember you told me, I’m having flashbacks to our former conversations, where when you were a monk in Hawaii for 10 years, they taught you how to do things that no one in the world has been taught to. Remember, they taught you how to sleep, I think, I remember you telling me, and they taught you how to do it, right?

54:26 And you’re like, and it was interesting because you’re like, people think that’s funny, but no one ever teaches people how to sleep or how to concentrate or all these basic things, whereas you were taught. Right, we were taught how to sleep, we were taught how to wake up, we were taught how to wipe ourselves with a towel after we shower, we, you know, we’re taught what to do when we were sleeping, where in the area of the mind to go to in our mind while we slept so that we would be restful and have deep sleep and have inner learnings as well in certain areas of the mind. Mundane things were taught: how to make our bed, you know, how to eat wild, I mean, these are basic things that every human being does all day long, do all day long, but we assume everyone knows how to do it.

55:10 We don’t teach them proper or better ways to do them, and there’s always a better way to do something. Yeah, we just assume people know how to do it. I think your clip on how to get to sleep is like one of our popular ones, where you talk about awareness in the mind and taking things down your appendages and into the spine, so it’s really good stuff. You’ve got a concept, I think you talk about, called the power of small, where I think you get people to do these incremental, sustainable changes in their behavior.

55:39 Can you talk about that? Yeah, I think, you know, in the West we were very, try to take on the whole thing, you know. It’s like, I don’t know if we’re inspired by Hollywood or not, it feels like a one-man army, like Rambo can go in and take on a whole army by himself, and we bring that attitude to our personal development and growth, you know, like, I can do this, you know, I can SoulCycle, I can do this, I can do that, and the mind and body doesn’t work that way, you know.

56:08 I look at the mind as a muscle, and the best way to change it is in tiny incremental steps, and all great things in this world were created in small steps. If you, I give an example of Angkor Wat. This is the world’s largest temple, and Siem Reap in Cambodia, you know, still standing today a thousand years later, it’s one square mile in size. It was built one brick at a time, one rock at a time, one stone at a time, and decades later you have this amazing temple that stands 4,000 years.

56:37 So I look at personal development, personal growth, as taking small, tiny steps. Small test steps are doable, right? Small steps are achievable, small steps are not daunting. If you ask me to walk from New York to L.A., I’m going to go like, holy crap, that’s a long distance, but if you ask me to take one step in the direction, I can feel comfortable doing that and I can feel confident doing that as well. So if you look at your life in that approach, then things become much more doable.

57:07 But I also feel that technology gives us so much instant gratification right away, right? And we take that instant gratification and bring it into our personal lives and expect changes, monumental changes, to happen overnight. You know, if I go to this retreat for 10 days I’m going to come back transformed, forgetting that it took you 45 years to get to this state, and now you think a 10-day retreat is going to transform your life. I don’t really think so.

57:36 You also talk about the importance of willpower, and I know your guru once said to you that the greatest thing you can develop in life is your willpower, and with that you can accomplish anything. Talk to me about willpower, and because I don’t, I think most people maybe don’t believe they have the willpower to do things, but also maybe again they’re expecting too much for themselves. How do you get people to get their head around that concept? Well, first of all, people are never taught to cultivate willpower.

58:06 People don’t even understand what willpower is and don’t understand that you can actually build, you can work to build it up, and in the monastery we’re trained to develop more willpower. So willpower is really a harnessing of all that energy. I simply refer to it in a very simple way, of willpower being a mental muscle, right, and it’s something, and I share three ways to develop willpower in the book that you can check out, and we’ve talked about in our previous show as well.

58:36 So once you know how to cultivate willpower, you can bring these practices into your life every single day to develop more willpower, which then you can direct to so many aspects of your life, whether it’s to create personal change, to accomplish business goals, family goals, but you need that willpower to be able to do that, and if you don’t cultivate it then you don’t have enough of that mental muscle to manifest things, to do things, to get things done. But that said, also I mentioned in the book that willpower can be used for negative purposes as well, right? The same muscle, I can be optional and say, I want to do this instead, I want to go drinking and I want to stay out late and I want to keep watching Netflix even though I shouldn’t be in.

59:24 So that’s why, along with cultivating concentration and willpower, we need to cultivate a series of core values that steer us in the right direction. So purpose defines priorities, priorities help define core values, and core values, I always say, a framework upon which we operate our life. And unless you have those core values you don’t have a framework, and then that willpower, that focus, can be redir- can be redirected to things in your life that are not good for you.

59:55 I can use my willpower and I can use my powers of focus to focus on things that are actually not uplifting to me. Yeah, yeah, you’re right, you have to always be checking in with that purpose. Is this part of the purpose? Is this me serving? Is this what I want?

1:00:09 Otherwise I cannot do it, because otherwise, like you said, that willpower can take you in the wrong direction. Yeah, I’ve really enjoyed jumping in. The book is The Power of Unwavering Focus. I want to ask you some questions about some of the days back in Hawaii and your current setup in Costa Rica, but is there anything else in the book that we didn’t cover that you want to cover, or bits of it that people need to know about it before they go out and buy it?

1:00:34 No, thank you for asking. I think we did an amazing job covering. So this is the book, it’s available, and I would say as you read through the book, take your time to read it. So don’t rush through it and read it in three, four days. It’s not a book to entertain you.

1:00:54 Carefully, I spent so much time crafting out every single sentence in that book. There’s a lot of deeper tools and meaning in there. Highlight things, dog-ear pages, go over, read, read it. There’s, I think, a lot of valuable insights and tools that were shared with me by my guru and things that I’ve developed myself as well. So I would say take your time and read it, because that’s one way to truly get something out of a book like this.

1:01:21 Yeah, and I highly recommend people to read it, and again, what’s special about you is that it’s real, and again you have this essence of serving and it’s practical things that people can do that will really change their lives. And yeah, that’s why I’m so glad you’ve finally written this book and distilled all of these great messages clearly. People want to hear what you have to say because you’ve been watched tens of millions of times, and your TED Talk and all your episodes here and your live events and all the courses you’ve sold, but I’m really glad you’ve boiled it down, and I think this is the time to write your book, because you’ll actually reach more people with this.

1:01:57 So thank you for getting that. It’ll be in bookstores, on Amazon, etc. I want to ask you about those days in Hawaii. Do you ever have flashbacks to that time in your life where you totally relocated from Australia, you didn’t think you had any money, you went out there, and I remember you telling me those first couple years it wasn’t even clear what was happening. They were like trying to tell you, your guru was trying to get you to learn things and not even showing you necessarily how to do it, and, you know, all these strange times of trying to figure out who you were, figuring things in this strange place with these strange people.

1:02:31 Do you ever miss those days because of their simplicity, and do you think about them differently now that you’re kind of older and been through the experience and lived in New York City? So yeah, just any reflections on that time in Hawaii. Yeah, you know, making the decision not to renew my vows after 10 years and to leave the monastery, I would say till today in my life has been the most difficult decision I’ve ever made, and when I made that decision not to renew my vows and leave the monastery, I got to a place of peace of where I don’t have a desire to go back to live that lifestyle, and I’m very happy being a householder, a priest, having a family, and the path that I’m going on.

1:03:16 But I would say those 10 years shaped my life for sure, and especially the years, the early years that I lived with my guru before he passed away, completely shaped my life. But I would say one of the biggest things that I would take away from that is the fact that spending time, dedicated time, getting to know yourself, working with yourself is so rewarding for the rest of your life, and had I not done that in that way, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t be able to achieve the things I’m achieving today and living the life that I’m living today.

1:03:57 And I feel that a lot of people don’t do that, and if more people took time out of their lives, figured out themselves, got to a place of being at peace with themselves, when I say being at peace with themselves, meaning that you understand that you’re a work in progress, right, there’s good parts and not so good parts, and you’re okay because you’re working on the not so good parts, then life becomes so much better. And I think, you know, looking back at the monastery, the time with my guru, the time with those monks, they were the most transformative times in my life for sure. You know, the deep work took place then, which set the foundation for me to now continue to do that work but also live the life that I’m living now.

1:04:45 Painful times as in the monastery? Yeah, must have been. Yes, I would say, I would say both the most spiritually rewarding times in my life, I’ve had such deep, profound experiences in meditations and prayer that I couldn’t even begin to describe, that I don’t even talk about or share, and very challenging times, because, you know, you talked about earlier, Brian, when we were talking about concentration and stuff, that how everyone pulls out the phone because it’s so uncomfortable to look within, right?

1:05:24 So we turn to the phone, we turn to something else in today’s world. In the monastery, in a very simplified way of looking at it, we strip everyone and everything away from you, so you have no contact with the outside world, people, your family, friends, relatives, you don’t have, you know, things that you tend to eat, look, watch, internet, so now you’re left with yourself. So when I go back to my hut at night I have no escape, there’s nothing to turn to, no books, no papers, no journals, no internet, no TV, nobody to talk to, nothing to listen to, I’m stuck with me, and that is horribly painful because you’re the worst person you can ever meet in your life.

1:06:09 You really are. It is the most painful thing to do because you start to see everything inside of you comes up and there’s nothing to stop it and there’s no way to run to, and that’s painful, and that’s also where the growth comes, because if you’ve got to spend exactly, yeah, hours with yourself and you’re like, who is this person, like, you know, and I don’t like this person and you’re not doing enough and you’re not doing what you said you’re going to do, you’re living no purpose. Yeah, you know, you can give yourself a nice, a nice good hiding, and then the next day when you wake up maybe you’re like, okay, well, let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s get better, right?

1:06:44 Let’s go do these things, let’s be better, of more service, let’s find a purpose, right? It’s a way to maybe to accelerate your life. I mean, let’s be honest, if you hadn’t gone to that monastery we wouldn’t be talking, you’d just be another punk kid from Australia probably, right? Right, probably, very much so. Yeah, for sure, I wouldn’t disagree.

1:07:03 But you know, you went into that crucible and you know, you constructed this man that you are today that can be a beacon of light and inspiration to so many people because you spent that time in that crucible, like I said, that pressurized, uncomfortable environment of trying to find out who you were and trying to find out your answers. And yeah, I feel like that’s missing in so many ways in this world for so many people. I mean, for some people there’s military service, or I guess there used to be rituals and practices and rites of passage, but for you it was a very important one, it seems.

1:07:39 Yeah, and you know, in certain Asian cultures there quite often were, many hundreds of years ago, where young men were sent to the monastery for two years, you know, like, I believe Singapore, for example, has a two-year mandatory military service or something for, you know, people that they have to go through, but in all cultures they would go to the monastery for two years to get trained about life and the mind and understand yourself, and then you decide if you want to pursue monastic life or come back out into the world and carry on. If you came back onto the world you’d have these two years of training about getting to know yourself. We don’t have any of that now, Brian, we just go to school and we learn all kinds of stuff that don’t really serve us at the end of day in life.

1:08:22 And like you talked about, rites of passage, rituals, a lot of cultures have that, all of those have been abandoned, so we struggle, we struggle in life, so many people struggle because they never, they aren’t taught about how to live an effective life. And the other thing I would say, it’s just not only the monastery, I had a guru, right, I had a mentor that cat for me, that took responsibility over my life, that trained me, and that made a massive difference. And look at all the people that have mentored you over the years.

1:08:56 I think you work with a guy named Ido, right, you know, Portal, am I saying his name right? Yeah, I did a lot of movement training with Ido and, you know, went to Israel and did a film with him, and yeah, I’ve had many mentors on this show over the years. Damn, and all of them shaped you a different way, right, in some parts, but those mentors were able to guide you and say, hey Brian, you’re doing this incorrectly, change this or try it this way or do it this way, and because they can all be there to guide you, it’s helped form you to who you are today, and most viewers don’t have that.

1:09:28 So how do you shape yourself when you don’t have those mentors, you know? Yeah, so my guru was that mentor for me in my time in the monastery, and so were the senior amongst the other monks there who helped shape and guide me and train me as I went along, and that was an amazing blessing. Yeah, it’s so important. I mean, yeah, they’ve changed me so much. I mean, I’m dressed this way because of Dan Pena, the Trillion Dollar Man, and his castle in Scotland.

1:09:55 I just did some breakdancing, and that’s because of Ido Portal, and there’s so many parts of my daily life that are affected by the people that came on the show. You’ve even affected me, you know, and the way I go to sleep at night or the way I have my meditation practice, like everybody has done a bit. It’s kind of that takes a village, but not everyone is blessed to have mentors like that. Before I started the show I didn’t really have mentors because I wasn’t in contact with them or I don’t know, wasn’t putting out that energy, but yeah, important to have, and important for you, you know, to get that direction and that guidance.

1:10:30 And yeah, I’ve got some plans to kind of put some rites of passage and rituals for my boys as they get older, so, because I know that’s really important. So yeah, that’s amazing. And I would say also, you know, with regards to mentors, again going back to purpose, right, once you clear what you want in life and that clarity of purpose can define priorities, then it’s easier to define the mentors. If you don’t have clarity of purpose, then going out and just finding mentors for the sake of having mentors, not the right approach.

1:10:58 Yeah, purpose will help you define what you want, and then you can find the right mentors to help you get there. Yeah, it should always be reverse engineered. That’s really well said, actually. Your clarity of purpose will attract mentors, period, period. Yes, yes, exactly right.

1:11:14 People always ask me, Brian, can I buy you a coffee and will you be my mentor? And it’s like, yeah, the mentor-mentee relationship is quite a fascinating one, because when you’re a mentee you think to yourself, why would a mentor ever take time out of their important life to help lowly me, that is clearly a neophyte in their mind? And then you think about who you are, well, the mentor gets something from the mentee because they see a little spark of who they once were, and so they get a lot out of helping that person, like a parent maybe does for a child, but they have to see that you’re focused and you’re not going to waste their time, because if they don’t see a spark that their efforts aren’t going to go completely, you know, unguided, you know, useless, then they’re going to do it.

1:11:59 Even your guru, you knew you had a commitment from you, right? He knew you were committed, so he’s probably willing to put the time in, otherwise maybe he wouldn’t. So it’s fascinating, and like you said, if you get the purpose you’d be amazed at who’s going to come into your life. You know, it’s interesting you say that, Brian, because I never wanted to be a teacher or leader or guide or catalyst in any way in my life, it was never my intention. When I lived with my guru I saw so many people come to him and he had mastered the ability to see if someone was serious or not, and 99.99% of people weren’t serious at all and he knew right off the bat, and they did, he knew how to basically shift them to a different direction.

1:12:40 And now as I proceed down the path, I’m experiencing what he’s experiencing, he experienced, where people are coming up to me and say down the pony, can you, can you train me, can you teach me, can you coach me? And I’m starting to decipher better and better, decipher if someone is serious or not. I had someone like a month ago, you know, a successful entrepreneur, wanted to get in touch with me, got in touch with me through a friend. I got on a call with him for 20 minutes, he convinced me, Brian.

1:13:07 He said, you know, Dandapani, I’m not going to be like the rest of them. I told them, you know, 99% of people don’t do what I ask them to do, I’ll give them a simple homework, they don’t understand, Dandapani, I’m going to be the 0.1% that’s different and I’m going to show you, send me the homework, I’ll get it done, I blah blah blah. And he talked for 10 minutes, I sent him the homework the same day, haven’t heard from him in more than a month. and the homework is so simple, and it’s a waste of my time now, waste 15 minutes of my life talking to him on the phone.

1:13:36 Yeah, so obviously I have better guardrails to filter out people that are not serious, because this doesn’t end, right, Brian? There’s a thousand people that probably would like to have coffee with you to figure out how to do interviews, for example, and if you sat down with those thousand people and none of them were serious, it’s a waste of your time. Yeah, and you can’t waste your time because that goes back to a lot of things in the book, because now you’re distracted, you’re not focused on your purpose, and then you can’t do all the great things you need to do.

1:14:05 So it’s not about even being selfish, it’s like, okay, you want to give the maximum impact to the world, and by by indicating, engaging with all these people that aren’t going to take action, it’s not in your interest. So yeah, again to people listening, if you really have that clarity of purpose, it’ll come out and the mentors will, they’ll find you. A couple, couple things. You went from Hawaii to New York City, which was a fascinating contrast, but I think you really enjoyed and thrived in New York.

1:14:32 I wanted to get your thoughts on New York City, and also now your thoughts being full-time in Costa Rica at your, not your retreat, your, your Yeah, and I know you’ve been working on that for nine years, so just tell me about those two locations. Yeah, no, I love being in New York. I just felt that it was the right city. I, as you know from the first show, I had nothing. I left a monastery with two sets of robes, my beads, my earrings, and then they gave me a laptop and a thousand dollars cash to get started, and, you know, made my way to New York, and I felt that, look, I’m gonna go anywhere, in one place in the world, it has to be in New York City and see if I can make it there, and and I just absolutely thrived.

1:15:14 I just love the energy of the place, it never distracted me, you know. I just, I met some amazing human beings, I had great examples, role models to follow, people, there were people that had taught me what to do and there were people that taught me what not to do, so lots of teachers in New York. And the whole goal was eventually to create Siwash from this place that I have now in Costa Rica. So a few years after leaving the monastery my wife and I bought this land here in Costa Rica, and our plan was always to move and then the pandemic accelerated it, so in pandemic hit, we moved to Costa Rica where we are right now.

1:15:52 So we have 33 acres of land, we’re creating a Hindu spiritual sanctuary and a botanical garden. We have a 50-year vision, as you know, in a 300-year plan for our project, and the goal is to impact as many human lives as possible and to impact, to teach people about the environment and the importance of caring for this planet, because if we don’t have a planet there’s no point us doing any of the work that we’re doing, because we won’t have a place to live in all of them, and that’s really the purpose of the idea is that when we think long term, Brian, you know, beyond our lifetime, I’m 48, so if I think beyond the next 50 years I make very, very different decisions than I do if I was only thinking 10 years, and some of the decisions that we have to make unpleasant and uncomfortable are decisions they don’t want to make because they don’t reward me in the short term, and then it sees how true I am to the purpose, you know.

1:16:54 Like we put so much money into this place, of our own money, to create this. I could have taken that money and, I don’t know, bought a boat and sailed on a lake for a year and drank wine, you know, done whatever, but instead we’re pouring into this place that we’re creating with the mission of impacting lives and empowering people with the tools of getting to know themselves, to know thyself. Yeah, and so what is the vision in 50 years? What’s that place look like in 50 years?

1:17:25 Who’s there? What’s happening? That’s a good question. I don’t know who’s there, I don’t have the answer to that, and that’s something I need to figure out, of what is the who are the board of directors, who are the stewards, that’s probably the better word to use, who are the students of Silva Ashram in the decades to come. I don’t have the answer to that one, something I need to figure out, and how do we select those students who want to serve the coalition selflessly.

1:17:56 I don’t have the answer to that. What does the place look like in 50 years? We’re going to have an amazing botanical garden, we’ve planted over four to five thousand trees and plants. The whole gardens are broken up into seven smaller gardens, each garden represents a different area of the mind, so someone walks through the garden, they come to the first garden, they learn about the subconscious, not only they learn about the subconscious, they learn also a tool that they can take home and apply in their life, a simple practical tool.

1:18:25 And the gardens are built for kids and adults as well, so even kids coming there will learn about their mind, they will learn how to develop willpower, they’ll learn how to concentrate while walking through nature and enjoying nature. And I want to bring technology into the garden as well, and this is part of our vision to come in the coming years, you know, like Pokemon Go, and you can go around looking for Pokemon, we want to have something similar where we can walk around on certain days with technology and look for extinct birds or extinct animals, you know, find them and then realize like, wow, look at that particular type of toucan, it used to exist here but it doesn’t exist anymore because they’ve lost a habitat. Now if we want to keep those toucans or other similar animals, we need to start caring for our planet.

1:19:14 If not, we’re going to lose all these other things as well. So how do we integrate technology, because technology, we’re in the technology bus, there’s no avoiding it, so we might as well integrate into our life and use it to help inspire us to be better humans and also care for our planet. I love it, and that’s what I see one day. Yeah, and will there be people that come there, will they kind of come visit, there will they stay there and learn? What will it be?

1:19:41 Yeah, people will come and visit the planets to have the gardens open in the mornings from like 9 to 12 so people can wander around and spend time and reflect and learn about themselves, about nature, and then we’ll also run retreats periodically. Right now the plan is not to have accommodation on site, but there’s tons of hotels and, you know, Airbnbs around that people can stay in them. Ideas to run shorter retreats, three days, five days, maybe even seven day retreats where people can come and have classes every day and be immersed in the space on the ground.

1:20:12 But the place really is, Brian, for people that are serious about transforming their lives, right? The people that come on the retreats, they’re coming down because they are ready to look within, be uncomfortable, and start doing the work. It’s not a place for entertainment to just come and do yoga and meditate because it’s a nice, I’m looking for something to do for five days. Yeah, seriously, it’s a place of self-transformation through personal effort.

1:20:41 Okay, I love it, I love it. That’s an important distinction, personal effort. Yeah, I love that, I love it, with purpose and getting down to business. What’s it like being a father? How’s that changed you?

1:20:52 What have you learned? Learned lots. I absolutely love my daughter, just crazy about her. I love spending time with her, we have an amazing relationship, and we play a lot, we wrestle a lot, we play what she calls a lot of dangerous, oh what mom needs, a lot of dangerous games, they could end up in one of us getting hurt, but that’s fine. We wrestle, we tumble, we go to the beach, we hang out, we draw, we color, we look at financial charts, pie charts, and all kinds of things.

1:21:31 I would say the big thing for me is that I really wanted a daughter, I really wanted a child, so, you know, having taken on a household in life, I wanted a child, and the fact that I wanted a child has resulted in the fact that I want to spend time with her, whereas I feel a lot of people have kids and don’t want to spend time with the kids, that the kids are better, you know, and they had kids because that’s the next natural thing to do. You know, you grow up, you go to college, you get a job, you get married, you have kids, that’s the cycle, but you don’t really want kids, so you don’t want to spend time with them, and it’s really sad. I actually enjoy spending time with my daughter, I love spending time with her, so it just brings me a tremendous joy, and it takes work, right, it takes a lot of work, and I’m very invested in looking at where she is now and teaching her about the things that she needs so that she can lean on her own spine.

1:22:33 So I’ve taught her about the mind and awareness moving through the mind, and, you know, she’ll come up to me and say sometimes, you know, that, where’s your awareness right now? You need to move your awareness out of the upset area of the mind, you’re happier. The fact that you can say that, three years in 10 months. she understands that it’s something you can shift, which is so empowering, which goes to show that the teachings in this book is not complicated to understand.

1:23:03 You know, if a three-year-old can understand this, then you can, and you can apply it, and she can apply it. She went up to my wife the other day and said, you need to shift your awareness to a happier mind and not be upset. Almost like, okay, it’s not complicated, we just need to be taught, right? Right, yeah, the same way you were taught about body movement, about all kinds of things, how to dress up, everything, the same way I was taught about so many different things.

1:23:35 We care about our children and we truly care about their lives, we’ll take time, dedicate time and work. I want to help her find her purpose in life so that she can spend as much of the years she has on this planet living in alignment with her purpose, as opposed to looking for her purpose. Yeah, so how can I help her do that as soon as possible? That’s a big lesson I took away from today, and I appreciate you saying that, you know, that we need to yeah, have some urgency with helping our children find their purpose, and that’s a big one, so thank you for that.

1:24:09 And you mentioned, you know, people not being able to spend time with their children, I think it comes down to some of the issues in this book, you know, if you are all anxious and stressed all the time, if you don’t have that purpose, and it’s easy to get into this treadmill where you don’t really have time for anything, right, you know, you’re trying to maybe get away from the pain and the anxiety and the stress, and then it’s hard to be a good parent. But, you know, being with your kids can be a tremendous thing, they are some of the most perceptive people, they’ll call you on your nonsense. My kids are some of the coolest people to hang out with, they’re funny, they’re fascinating, they’re crazy, and they call me out on all my nonsense more so than any adults do.

1:24:48 So yeah, it’s a beautiful relationship, and that’s so great to have that relationship, right, with your kids. And you know, I also feel that we’re as a society doing way too much, and people say like, oh, you know, I don’t have time for my kids, I don’t know, this is like, simplify your life. Instead of having a hundred friends, maybe have ten instead of watching 20 shows, watch one, so reading 30 books, read one book less. You know, people talk about, oh, we’re living in such a fast pace.

1:25:18 Well, we’re not, we’re just doing too much. I think fast is not the right word, it’s not about slowing down. People always say, oh, we need to slow down. No, we don’t need to slow down, we need to simplify, do less so you can spend more time with the people and things that matter to you. That’s how it works.

1:25:33 Yeah, what’s that? I wanted to spend time with my daughter. Yeah, I’ve said no to people and things in my life, people that were close to me have now fallen lower and the less because my daughter is a priority. In order for me to spend two hours with her or three hours with her a day, I need to say no to a whole bunch of things and people in my life, and I’m okay doing that. She is a priority.

1:25:56 Yeah, yeah. What’s Dandapani doing five years from now? What do you actually think your life will be like? Will you be, will there be another book, will you be traveling more, will there be more courses, will there be the Netflix series, like, what’s in the future for you? I would say after writing this book and being so hesitant to write a book for over a decade, I probably would write another book.

1:26:22 I think it was a really good exercise for me to get my thoughts clear as well, like you said. I would probably, there definitely will be more courses. I would love to travel much less because it’s not something I enjoy doing, traveling around the world and speaking, not that I just, it just takes away too much from my routine and the people that I want. What I would love to be doing is to have my ideal day, which a friend of mine helped me, taught me to define for myself many years ago, living in Costa Rica, waking up in the morning, doing, dedicating more time to my spiritual rituals in the morning, spending time with my family, working in my business during the day, in the morning, and then spending half the day working in the gardens, which I love doing, planting, landscaping, building things, spending time with my family, that’s what I want, and spending time with people that are really serious about wanting to change their life, which right now is maybe about two of them in my life right now.

1:27:24 So out of the thousands that have approached me, I’ve only found two that are absolutely serious about doing anything that I tell them to do. These people actually do the work, everybody else doesn’t. Crazy, huh? Out of the thousands of people that have reached out, Brian, only two actually do what I tell them to do. I know, it’s fascinating, but I’ve been there, so I know what you’re talking about.

1:27:49 For sure. I like, I like the second book idea, so, you know, who knows, we can do the collaboration, The Power of Unwavering Money. You know, I’m telling you, I’m telling you, your book on money will be an even better, bigger bestseller than this one. Maybe this is going to do really well, but yeah, clearly that resonates with people, and I think you have so much good ips. So yeah, just, I just want to say, Dandapani, I really appreciate you.

1:28:16 You’ve been a big part of this show over the years, and again, a big draw, a lot of people know London Real because of you, and you know, we had you on back in 2016, the show was still quite young, and I don’t know, I feel like you really symbolize the essence of London Real. Here we have someone on that probably people would normally never meet in their lives, and yet immediately you resonated with them, and we didn’t need some TV show or some Hollywood agent to give it the green light. We literally, you and I had a conversation that had pure intentions, and then we put it online and the internet decides, right, and people watch it or they don’t, and people really were drawn to it because it was something that was useful for their lives, and again, you can’t argue with the numbers.

1:29:03 It’s like, you know, if it, people clearly were drawn to that message, and so yeah, I just want to thank you for constantly putting yourself out there, and again all the travel you used to do and just putting these ideas out there, it’s been so helpful and it’s changed so many people’s lives. And again, at our event, a summit event, you know, people were just loving the fact that you were there and they really enjoyed you, so yeah, thanks for doing that, thanks for writing this book. I know it’s a difficult job, and just for continuing to live this life of purpose and service, it’s not easy to do that.

1:29:35 You make it look easy, but it’s not easy, I know. So I just want to say thank you, and I have lots of challenges doing it too, right, not to say that everything is smooth with us. I am a work in progress, and thank you to Brian, for, you know, having me on the show. When I travel I hear a lot, the one interview people always refer to as the first one we did in 2016, and for some reason they go, they specifically say that first interview on London Real, you know, changed my life.

1:30:07 I watched it so many times and I go back to it so many times, and so that was very impactful for me too, and you always do an amazing job of having great conversations with people, you know, all your interviews, so thank you for all the service that you do and for what you do. So it’s my pleasure, man. So the book is The Power of Unwavering Focus, it’s out now, bookstores, get the hard copy, Amazon. Is there a website that goes with it or any other information that people should know about the book?

1:30:34 If people go to my website, dandapani.org, they’ll find all the information and places to buy. The book’s going to get translated into 20 different languages, so I know the UK, Transworld is the publisher over there, so they’re having that version for the Commonwealth countries and the UK. There’s a Kindle and an audiobook version as well, and then it’s coming in Chinese and Arabic and a few languages in India and a bunch of different places too. That’s amazing.

1:31:02 Yeah, the greatest gift, I would say one last thing, Brian, you know, is that if anybody wants to say thank you for the content they’ve consumed from me that helped them in their life, the biggest way you can say thank you to me is to put the tools into practice in your life. And I realized that my guru spent so much of his precious time and life training me, and I realized one day in the monastery the greatest way I could say thank you to him is to actually do the work he gave me to do or apply the tools and teaching cgaf to me, and by doing that was the greatest way I could say thank you to him. I could buy him flowers, I could, you know, say thank you to him or cook him a meal, but living what he taught me would be the greatest way I can appreciate and honor the time and energy he invested in me.

1:31:56 Yeah, so well said, I would say. All right, good. Well, that’s it. So learn about this with the book, apply those lessons, and then we can change the world. It’s that’s it, it’s that simple, right?

1:32:07 So thank you so much. I’m gonna come see you next time I’m down there in Costa Rica, and hopefully we’ll bump into you sometime in London and we’ll get our kids to play together. But again, thank you so much, appreciate the book, looking forward for everybody to see it. And next time we do list, let’s do this in person, shall we? Let’s do that, I would love that.

1:32:27 Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you, brother, appreciate you. All right, and thank you, thank you everybody for watching, we’ll see you next time on London Real. Take care. Bye.