Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1020: Dandapani on the Power of Focus

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin speak with Dandapani, a Hindu priest, speaker on self development and entrepreneur. The practice of ‘Unwavering Focus’. (2:54) How can you practice concentration? (8:43) Why learning doesn’t make your wiser if you’re not implementing what you learn. (10:02) Where awareness goes, energy flows. (14:51) What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom? (19:19) The concept of learning to lean on your own spine. (23:24) What was the driving force behind him joining the monastery? The importance of the student/teacher relationship. (27:32) What does a typical day look like at the monastery? (37:27) Why your whole day is a preparation for success. (40:12) What are the steps to mastering focus? (43:56) Problems are not problems; they are subconscious patterns that need to be adjusted. (46:36) What are the results you want, how to stay concentrated to manifest it in the mind to create physically. (48:23) Understanding your purpose in life and ‘making the case’. (53:08) The benefits of learning how to concentrate and knowing your priorities in life. (59:28) Did he experience any culture shock once leaving the monastery? (1:03:15) What are the biggest challenges he faces today? (1:09:13) The meaning behind the 3 lines on his forehead. (1:10:30) How does he define enlightenment? (1:12:54) Featured Guest Dandapani (@dandapanillc)  Instagram/Twitter Website Related Links/Products Mentioned Special Promotion: MAPS P.E.D. $60 off until Sunday, April 28th at midnight **Code “PED60” at checkout** April Promotion: MAPS Split ½ off!! Code “SPLIT50” at checkout Unwavering Focus | Dandapani | TEDxReno - YouTube Mind Pump 1002: Jim Kwik’s 10 Keys To Getting More Out Of Your Brain Kliff Kingsbury Will Give Players "Cell Phone Breaks" In Meetings Halo effect - Wikipedia

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Don DePonney. Oh, great conversation with that guy. Love this dude. Love him very much. So he's an internationally renowned and highly sought after speaker.

And this guy, a lot of people are saying he's revolutionizing the business world with his, I guess, practical and simple systematic approach to balancing work life challenges. He talks about how the mind works. Now, he's a priest now, right? He's like a Hindu priest, but he was a monk for a second, and he went in for like 10 years living. Yeah, he was a monk that was completely just trying to work on focus.

That's it. And that's what we talked about. And this guy's great conversationalist, great episode. You know, every once in a while we do an episode where I learn a few truly impactful things and this is one of those times. Yeah, no, I think we all took something from him and he's also somebody I think we connected with after the fact.

This is for sure somebody that will probably be remain in our circle of good connection. I think his overall message that he's presenting, I think is really solid. And I think you guys will really enjoy this. Yeah, he communicates a lot of great wisdom. You can find him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube at Don Dupani. I think that's LC, right, Doug? LLC. Sorry. Don Dupani, I think that's LC, right, Doug? LLC. Sorry, Donda Pani, LLC. So, D-A-N, D-A-P-A-N-I, LLC, that's real fine on all those platforms.

His website is dondapani.org. He has a 12 week course on focus, so we know you're going to enjoy this episode. Before we get into it though, these are the final hours for our new program launch, MapsPED, extremely advanced. This is our most advanced program by far. So all you fitness fanatics, all you maniacs, all you people almost squeeze out every bit of your genetic potential. This is the program for you, but don't say I didn't warn you.

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So there you go, two programs, MassPED, super duper advanced, Mapsplit just advanced, both on sale, MapsPED.com for $60 off PED60, Maps.com split 50 for the 50% off map split. And that's it. There you go. Here we are talking to Don DePonney. Don DePonney, it's an absolute pleasure to have you stop by Mind Pump. And I've got a ton of stuff. I know the boys do too. We have a ton of stuff that I want to get into with you. But I would love for you to start talking about what you discussed. And one of your TED talks, that was phenomenal, was the unwavering focus.

And I just think that that's a really good place to start with you because we've actually just recently been talking a lot about digital wellness and the importance of that and why we think that's going to be a major conversation in the next decade or so. And I think you got a phenomenal talk. So if I could start you there, that'd be great. Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks for having me here. And I'm glad to be here.

The talk was really titled Unwavering Focus. And it really was all about getting the concept across that most people can't concentrate because they've never been taught how to concentrate and they don't practice it. And I travel all around the world and I speak and one thing I've done is survey everywhere I go and I ask, has anybody here been taught how to concentrate when they were growing up in school the same way you were taught math and science and geography for like an hour, two hours each day in school, have you been taught a content trade and nobody puts their hand up. And I've asked us in Russia and Africa, Middle East, Asia and Australia, around

the US, nobody. So if we don't learn to concentrate and we don't practice it, well obviously you can't practice something you haven't learned, then how can you be good at it? And what we practice all the time is distraction. So the more you practice distraction, the better you become at it. And people are master's at distraction. And they think it's a problem and people are being drugged for it and diagnosed with colorful alphabets. But I ask a simple question, you know, parents come up to me me and they say you know, oh my kid can't concentrate And I go like okay, so you know he's he's got ADD or ADHD and drugging him my first question to them is have you actually taught them how to concentrate and they're gonna like oh we haven't

So imagine if I wanted to play the piano and nobody taught me how to play the piano and they told me to play the piano And I couldn't play the piano because nobody taught me and they drug me for it. That's pretty messed up. It is. How does one learn how to concentrate? How would you begin to teach that? By learning how the mind works first because we concentrate with the mind. Right. So you guys lived right? Right. So you guys lived right? Right. I mean, is it obvious?

So wouldn't you teach people some basic things about the body? You would, right? You just don't go, like, hey, pick up that way and start swinging. You might teach them some basic stuff about the body. So the same way, you concentrate with your mind. You have to learn how the mind works. And once you learn how the mind works, you can learn to harness it. And you can learn to focus it. And once you learn that the mind works, you can learn to harness it and you can learn to focus it.

And once you learn that, then it's about practicing and you have to be practice and you have to really practice. The next natural question is how much do you practice? And the question that follows that is, well, how good do you want to be? You know, if I want to be a piano player, then obviously the first thing I need to do is learn how to play the piano. The second thing is I need to practice. How much do I practice? Well, how good do I want to do is learn how to play the piano. The second thing is I need to practice. How much do I practice?

Well, how good do I want to be if I want to play for my asshole? I don't have an asshole. But if I do want to play for my asshole on the weekend, then I might practice 20 minutes a week. But if I want to play for Juliet, it might be seven hours a day, seven days a week. And it seems like especially modern life is not set up well for practicing concentration. It almost seems like in order to practice concentration in modern times, you have to, the same way you have to make time for exercise, you have to carve out time because it's so

distracting. Am I off base or? Can I say yes? Yeah. Yeah. And the reason is that you know part of the reason. So when I when I lived as a monk as a celibate Hindu monk in a cloistered traditional monastery, Hindu monastery in Hawaii, you know, we would chair tools and teachings with people when they came to visit. And one of the things people would say to us is that, well, it's so easy for you to practice all of these things. You live in a monastery on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.

How hard is it to be zen? And fair, I couldn't argue with that. So when I left the monastery 10 years ago and I'm no longer a monk, I'm at priest now and I live with my wife and my daughter in New York and I'm an entrepreneur. The reason I chose New York City is because I wanted to show people that you can live in New York City, you can be an entrepreneur, you can have a business travel around the world and still practice concentration in the business city in the world. And I use technology a lot. So it's not something that I'm shying away from. I think what people think technology is distracting. And I've had so many people

come up to me, hold their cell phones up into my face and go, these things are ruining our lives. And I go, no, these things are not ruining our life. This is a beautiful piece of technology. What's ruining your life is your inability to exercise discipline around the use of it. Right? So the idea is that you use technology

as opposed to technology users. You in the same way, if you look at your whole day, how do we integrate the practice of concentration throughout everything that we do? So for me, I'm not a big exercise person, you know, good or gym or run a little bit, but you know, I'm not like working out for five hours a day. But I still believe that it's important to exercise. So like I travel a lot, and whenever I'm at the airport, I never take the escalator, I always take the snackies.

Even if I'm carrying a bag, I'll be the only person walking up three flights of staff as well. The whole escalator is packed with people. So I'm using opportunities throughout the day to practice. Give me some ideas of how you would practice concentration throughout the day, or is there something that you can teach where people can take it and apply it themselves through this podcast? Yeah, for sure. So one thing, I tell people to,

the one way I tell people to practice concentration is doing one thing at a time. So giving someone your undivided attention is a great way to practice concentration. So every day I speak with my wife, right? It's something that happens every day. So during she has her own business, I have my own business. So during an average work day, I might speak with her maybe for about two hours, a little bit in the morning, during the day she might call me, I might chat with her and then she comes, she comes home at night, we have dinner together, we make dinner, we hang out, we talk. So to say an hour and a half to two hours.

Every time I speak with my wife, I give her my undivided attention. My awareness drifts away, I bring my awareness back to her and I stay focused on that conversation. So now I'm practicing concentration for two hours a day. So now I've got two hours, I've clocked in two hours a day. So after a week, when am I getting better? Concentration, right? So I'm leveraging the things that are happening throughout the day as opportunities to practice concentration.

Interesting, it sounds so simple, but makes perfect sense. You have to share with us how you were taught this. You give this great analogy of how the mind works with awareness. You have to share that, because I think that's a powerful analogy for people trying to figure this out.

Like, okay, it's just not that simple. I focus on my wife, but then I'm actually thinking about other things that happen in my day. Yeah, so one of the big things that you can hear that on my TEDx talk too, I talk about understanding the mind the way we were trained as monks is that

the two things we need to understand there's the mind and there's awareness. And you're not the mind, rather you're pure awareness moving through different areas of the mind. So your mind doesn't move, rather your awareness is moving through the mind. So when I'm speaking with my wife,

if I'm getting distracted, it's my awareness is leaving her and it's moving to a different era of the mind. So when I'm speaking with my wife, if I'm getting distracted, it's my awareness is leaving her and it's moving to a different era of the mind. I might be thinking about a client or a contract I need to sign or a business opportunity and then I bring my awareness back to her. We keep chatting for a minute and then my awareness drifts away again and I bring my awareness back. So I define concentration as my ability to keep my awareness on one thing for an extended period of time, until I can consciously choose to move it to another thing. So, if I'm speaking with you, I give you my undivided attention.

I keep my awareness on you. Every time it drifts away, I bring it back. It drifts away. I bring it back and I train myself. And I think that's where people in today's world, I feel so many people are lazy and they want a quick fix. Because everything that's being sold to them is a quick fix.

You only need to do so many hours before you get certified as a yoga teacher. You can come to the weekend course to enlightenment. That's the one week seminar to understand mind-body connection. I'm like, what BS? Right. Obviously, I'm not ripped like you guys,

but if I wanted to look like you guys, how can you give me a weekend cost to be like this? No. How long would it take? Two weekend courses. Oh, we're selling my mind pump media to an office in our own program. 299, but if you use this code,

you're absolutely right, 100%. Right, and people don't want to do the work. Everybody wants a quick fix. I was just came back from Europe last week. I had some events in London and Munich and Hamburg. Common question people must. So can you share with me a really quick way on how I can learn to concentrate?

Why is it always a quick way? I have 10 years of my life learning this. And the way my teacher taught me was just like wax on wax off just one little thing at a time. Relentless practice, you'll first you understand how it works, then you learn how to practice it and then you just repeat that mindlessly till it becomes numb. You never ever say I know and everybody I teach, the one thing they all say to me, they look at me, okay, I got it. I'm like, bullshit, you got it.

Because whenever my teacher taught me, I just listen and I just shout up and I said, no, if he's telling me again, there's a reason why he's telling me again because I don't understand it yet. Because if he knew I understood it, he wouldn't tell it to me again. And there's something deeper to learn. And you just keep learning the same thing. And everybody wants new things, right? They're tired. It's like, I'm done with part one. Can you give me part two? What's next? And people on this crazy learning, you know, it becomes like cocaine. Everybody wants to learn, but nobody practices anything. And they think by learning something, you're actually maturing or becoming wise. No, learning doesn't make you wise

if you don't implement anything that you're learning. So people are going from one cost to another to another to another. And then people in my industry, the self-help industry, that's how they make the money, right? It keeps selling you shit. Over and over again. And you just keep buying. And you think you're learning and growing, but you're not. Because you don't even practice the first thing you do, you're taught. Would you say the first step in all this is knowing that I self or learning yourself first, self-awareness?

Yeah, for sure. But you cannot attain self-awareness if you can't concentrate. How can I be able to introspect and see what my problems are if I can't even stay focused on me for longer than five seconds? The only way I know there's a problem, if I can sit here long enough, I can look at this room and I go, that thing seems like it's going to fall off the ceiling because I can stay concentrated long enough to observe it. People can't see the problems within themselves because they can't stay

observant long enough, they can't stay focused long enough. For me, the first thing you want to learn is concentration because if you can't concentrate, you can't solve problems, you can't be better at what you do. How can you be a great athlete, how can you be a great singer and artist, a scientist, a doctor? How can you be a great athlete? How can you be a great singer and artist as scientists? Adocta if you can't stay focused long enough to gain mastery over the topic. Yeah You mentioned something to about energy and you give a really good visual For people like me that's that's really helpful to be able to kind of wrap my brain around how to focus and channel The energy correctly and where you know, you talked about different parts of the brain and how that, you know, sort of lights up that area.

Can you kind of go into that a little bit? Yeah, so Megger had a beautiful saying, and it said, well, awareness goes energy flows. So we, a simple analogy, I always tell people to look at awareness as a glowing ball of light. So imagine your minus of our space and your awareness is a glowing ball of light that's floating through the mind and you can control where it goes and there's different areas of the mind. There's an anger, of the mind, there's a healthy area of the mind, there's a science and sex and food and photography and if your awareness is going to a particular area of the mind that's where

energy is flowing because where awareness goes, energy flows. And energy is like water. Whatever I water will start to grow. So if I check a watering can and I watered a garden bed, would the weeds grow or the flowers grow? Both, right? Because water can't tell the difference. Energy works the same way. If I put energy to a particular area of my mind, it will start to grow. So if I want to develop a particular area of the mind, all I need to do is harness my awareness, take it to that area of the mind and hold it there long enough so there's enough energy going to that area and that area starts to get strengthened. Have you ever met somebody who can get angry so easily? Yeah. Like just like that. And they're like going to a rage because they are when this is trained to go to the angrier of the mind all the

time. And every time awareness goes from here to there back and forth and back and forth, it creates a path in their mind, right? Like a long deep groove that it's so easy for them to go there. And every time awareness goes to the angrier of the mind, where awareness goes to energy flows, it's depositing a little bit of energy that. So after a while that angrier of the mind, where awareness goes to energy flows, it's depositing a little bit of energy that. So after a while, that angry air of the mind is so filled with energy and energy is magnetic by nature, and that's what starts to draw your awareness there.

And it becomes that angry air of the mind becomes like a giant magnet that can so easily pull awareness to that area of the mind. And that's why those people can get so triggered all the time. And different people cultivate different areas of the mind. And that's why those people can get so triggered all the time. And different people cultivate different areas of the mind. Some people are happy, they're always happy, they're always an optimist because that's where the awareness is going and because awareness goes there, energy flows there, more energy is deposited there, more energy deposited there means more magnetic, which means it pulls awareness there much easier. It's interesting because we describe bad movement patterns like this. So it's very common when you have really bad posture because you sit at the desk all day long that you start to get what we call poor recruitment patterns.

Where neurologically the body starts to form and shape itself in a bad position and then you go to do exercise. And just because you're doing a good exercise, like let's say a squat, the body still defaults to the pattern. It's almost hardwired at that point. Yeah. And you have to retrain the brain first

before you can even perform exercises correctly. So it seems to me like, why would it be any different for the brain, right? Mine works exactly the same way. Anything that the mind basically has no ability to tell what's good for you and what's not good for you. If the mind actually knew, we'd all be perfect. I'd wake up in the morning, my mind would tell me, meditate for an hour, do yoga, run,

work out, eat these type, this breakfast, then sit down for two hours or one hour, then stretch, then do this. No, my mind just said, like, do whatever the hell you want to do. Right? You like fries? Go ahead and eat it. You know, have do this. No, my mind just says, like, do whatever the hell you want to do. Right? You're like, for ice, go ahead and eat it. You know, have another beer. The mind doesn't know, right? So whatever we tell our mind, whatever we repeat over and over, and our mind creates patterns. And these patterns, when they're repeated, whether they're repeated consciously or unconsciously, become deeply ingrained and become extremely difficult to build or to break. Yeah. And in studies, we'll show that, you show that you will create new pathways in the brain and the more you use them,

the stronger they become. And when you stop using them, they start to dissipate. So, I mean, this has all been proven now, and these are old teachings, but these have all been proven now through physiology. Right, and that's why in, in monk school, it's all about rituals. Right, it's all about rituals. right? It's all about rituals. So from the day we, moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, it's ritual. And you can tell in a very traditional monastery like the one I went to, what, from what the monk is doing, what time of the day it is.

You know, you, you, you had mentioned earlier, just because someone learns something, doesn't mean they're wise to it. What is the difference between knowing, like, knowledge, knowing information and wisdom? I would say knowing is taking information, absorbing information, either through listening to it or reading about it, having it registered in the subconscious. And then when it sits in the subconscious, it's sitting there with other information. The subconscious is basically a storehouse of information. It's your hard drive. And then your intellect then processes all that knowing that information and then spits it out in different ways depending on who you're trying to entertain at the party. That's knowing.

That's knowing. Wisdom is knowledge coming in and then that knowledge being applied in a timely way. And my guru defined wisdom as the timely application of knowledge. Right? So how do I take that knowledge applied at the right time so that it actually creates a change in my life? It's very different than learning about awareness and the mind going to Paddy and go, by the way, we had an interesting guest today on our show. He's a Hindu priest and he talked about awareness in the mind, very fascinating. That's useless.

That's knowledge, right? Wisdom is going like, I go to get my car, somebody yells at me, my awareness gets pulled to the angrier of the mind and I go, oh, I lent this earlier today, I can bring my awareness back, I am not going to go to the angrier of the mind. Take that knowledge and apply it right now. That person is taking my awareness to an angrier of the mind. I'm bringing it back here and say, you know, he's trying to make me angry, I'm not going to go that. That's the timely application of knowledge. And that is what wisdom is. And that's why you need to practice it because it won't happen automatically unless you

are good at it. Yes. And you can't practice it once, right? Can I go do what you guys are teaching just once? No. It's mindless repetition over and over and over again. And people don't like repeating the same things. One of the things I do teach is meditation. You know what? It's the most common question I get asked. So do you have a different meditation? Do you have a different one? Yeah, so like a faster one, right? Like a faster one. Do you have one? Do you have one for stress? Do you have one for like, you know, I can meditate with my cat? Do you have one for stress? Do you have one for like, you know,

I can meditate with my cat. I sound like some, do you have like a, like a Zen meditation? I have one, I've been doing one meditation. My guru taught me one meditation almost three decades ago. I've been doing the same meditation, haven't changed it one tiny bit. The same thing for almost 30 years. And people come up to me and go like,

you got a different one? Yeah, sure. Because that's what people teach, right? I mean, like you go on a headspacey, you have like a buffet of meditation to pick from. And I think the old traditional way of learning and training between like a student and teacher is completely lost. You know, nowadays we cater for what the student wants. The student goes, say, wakes up one morning, go like cater for what the student wants. The student goes, say, wakes up one morning, go like, I'm kind of stressed, a lot of things going on at work. I think I should learn meditation. Go online, look at a couple of apps. Oh,

headspace has got so much, calm, scut so much. I'll just download it, start meditating. In the old way, no, you go see the teacher, the teacher goes, I'll tell you what to do. Like if I want to learn the piano, do I go up to a piano teacher and say, teach me beat hoven? No, it's going to learn the scales, you can learn how to sit down, maybe stretch your fingers, your body posture, the piano, how you hold your hands, your arms.

The fundamentals. The fundamentals, right? And that could go on for weeks, for months, for years before you start learning something. And nowadays, no, you can start meditating and like as quickly as you can download the app. It reminds me of the old Kung Fu movies I still watch as a kid where the student goes

and finds the master. And he's like, gotta live with the master. I'm gonna learn the one inch punch. Yeah, and he's gotta carry the buckets and he's gotta, that was two inches, man. David! But it already ruined it. So what do you think about the modern,

because this permeates everything, it permeates our space too with fitness. We'll talk about how it takes time and getting in shape and learning, have a good relationship with food and all that takes a long time. And people always want to have the shortcut, they always do. How do you feel about the modern movements

of reaching enlightenment or hyperawareness through pharmacology through psychedelics, through using these drugs rather than taking the time to do the repetitive meditations. One of the big teachings I learned from my guru and he used to say this sort of amongst all the time and I loved this quote by him. He said, learn to lean on your own spine. And in the monastery that I lived in, there were 27 months. And you know, the 52 years he taught, he had 27 months when he died. So it wasn't easy to get in. He was a tough teacher. We're very loving wise teacher and wasn't easy to stay in. But the one thing he always said to us is that don't lean on me because one day when I die, you're gonna follow over, learn to lean on your own spine.

And I think in today's world, people lean on so many things, right? Whether it's drugs or technology, you can't even meditate now without like, sticking some wires to your head to measure brain waves so that it can play the right music based on how your Teta or whatever waves are shaking in your head, right? It's giving you feedback and then you want to do yoga? You got a yoga mat yoga block yoga straps and then you know the anti-sweat pants made out of bamboo Recycle from the Philippines and then like you got music and then you got your anti-sweat pants made out of bamboo recycle from the Philippines.

And then like you got music and then you got the you have those great pants. Yeah, super comfy. Yeah, exactly. The men's one aren't so great. And then you got like small you know like incense burning. I mean, you're just trying to yoga. Yoga's been around in Hindi religion for thousands of years. People just went out in the dead floor by the river and just did yoga.

And we just complicate things, right? Everything is complicated. And when you become dependent on so many things, you never start to learn about. You and I had this interesting interview I in London just last week and I was telling the guy that was interviewing me that... London just last week and I was telling the guy that was interviewing me that the way we're going is we're becoming just this piece of meat. For thousands of years I believe people learn to become sensitive to their mind, their body, and their nervous system. And that's how we survive

in this planet, all over the world, whether it was in Europe, Africa, Asia, people went out to the forest and you what leave a root or plant, heal something? And that's how we survived, right? There was no doctor or pharmacy to go to. We understood our body, we knew how to connect to the plants, with things, we were sensitive enough. And now, in today's world, we don't try to be, we are the most amazing tool on the planet, our body and our mind. But yet, we don't try to understand it ourselves. We need technology to tell us about our body. We need other things to tell us about our mind.

Get to know your mind, get to know your body so that you can understand it. We have the most amazing tool in the world. Yet, we turn to other things like technology and drugs and everything. Why? Just go within yourself and find out all answers inside of you. We had a guest on the show talk about,

I think he called it digital amnesia, which I thought was brilliant. Because so I just turned 40, okay? So I was alive long enough to see the world or live in the world without smartphones, and now obviously they're everywhere. And he asked us, he said, how many phone numbers do you remember?

The only phone numbers that I remember are the ones that I knew when I was a kid. Because now, I don't lean on myself like you're saying, it's all remembered for me. In fact, if my phone were smashed, I wouldn't be able to call my girlfriend because I don't even, I don't know what her phone number is because it's remembered on my phone. So I think what you're

saying is extremely true. You refer back to your teachings, I would like to go back to that a little bit and what brought you to that point? Why did you decide to learn what you learned and dedicate your life for so many years to learn these things? For me, the greatest impetus for joining the monastery was, you know, when I wanted to be amongst themselves about four or five years old, and it wasn't until about eight or nine that I realized why I wanted to be amongst. And for me, that was because I realized that everything in life is transient of nature. And I was living in Malaysia that time and I'll share the story where I remember going to my cousins birthday party one day and my brother and I were excited to go we could eat cake and play with my cousins and have great time. So all day we were excited

getting ready. And then you know come in the evening my parents drive us over to my cousin's home and we hang out with kids all play and eat cake. And then I remember four, five hours later getting in the car driving home, my parents are driving us home. I'm sitting in the back looking out the window and I'm thinking to myself, it's over. Everything ends. And I realized that everything in life goes through three phases, right? Through the phase of creation, preservation of existing and then a phase of destruction or dissolution or way it ends. And I call it myself, that sucks. My mom says it's going to take me out for ice cream. I'm brothers and I excited. Should we get chocolate? No, don't get chocolate.

We got chocolate last time. We should try the other one. Like, yeah, let's try the other one. So all day we're talking about that. Then we get in the car in the evening, we go to ice cream store. That's the creation. Then we get to ice cream store. We buy ice cream, we eat. That's the existing, the preservation. Then we get in the con we go home and it ends. And I go like, is that why we're on this planet? Just to go through the stupid cycle over and over again. I don't want someone to give me something and then take it away. And you're eight years old. That's pretty deep. Yeah. I mean, it's not a lot of kids are thinking that.

Yeah. But it's true though. My biggest question to me is, what's the constant in life? I refuse to believe that was no constant, right? There must be something that doesn't change underlying all of this within all of this. What's the constant? Because it just doesn't make sense.

And that drove me to try and find a teacher that could teach me. And I met a lot of wonderful teachers along the way, but most of them were inspiring and motivating. That was my biggest problem with them. I'd go listen to a monk speak or guru speak, and our later I was like like they were charismatic. They spoke wise words. Some in a very soft tone. You young grasshopper must learn to control the mind. And you know I'd be so inspired. That was the greatest, right? Oh yeah. And then I go home and I tell myself I do everything they were teaching. I do it for four, five days and then the inspiration motivation went away and I defaulted back to him. I lost. I could never sustain change. But I wasn't to actually met my guru who never tried to inspire me or motivate me. But what he did was give me practical tools and showed me how I could consistently apply

them in my life to create sustainable change. And that was the biggest thing that was eluding me, right? Sustainable change. And I'm sure in your work, you see people come, they're inspired, probably at the end of the year, everybody wants a new body for the next year. They practice for a month, two months, and then they disappear. How many people can sustain change? And that's, you know, it wasn't until I met my

teacher, I actually found someone who could... How old were you when you met him? I met him actually when I was nine, very briefly, and then I met him again when I was 21 and the meeting when I met him when I was 21 was what really changed my life and I was ready to join his monastery. And now, is there a process of... Did he has to accept you? Yes, is there a process of that he has to accept you? Yes, the process is two ways. He has to accept me and I have to accept him. And that's the old school student teacher relationship. It's a two way street.

What does that look like? Or sign a form, email, not just. That sounds real hard, bro. That's it? That's right. It's fill up a form online. You can submit like the same way like podcast form, like how many bloody questions on this form?

He's the same. He's the same. Interview online? That's what. Yeah. So, it's a process of getting to know you, right? And a traditional teacher, and you look at so many teachers nowadays, you can get a mantra overnight.

Yeah, you can go pay $5,000 and get a mantra from a teacher. Oh yeah, there's tons of places you can go and girls are accepting students left, right, and send it. And with my teacher, it wasn't, it was a long process of two, three years of getting to know each other. He'd give you an assignment and see if you do the assignment and some assignments would last a day and some assignments would last four months and a simple task if you didn't do the assignment then yeah he didn't bother. Wow. Sometimes the assignments made sense. Sometimes it didn't make sense at all. Give me one that just give me an assignment that you got and you were just like what the hell is this? Did you ever get a moment like that? Yeah, many times. Oh, okay.

Yeah, many times. Oh, what's one? This was one before I joined the monastery. He made me color a coloring book. And I'm like, why the hell am I coloring color? I want enlightenment. I'm gonna color a mouse and a lion and a cat. But you know what?

I trusted this man, right? I got to know him, right? And there was a deep inner connection the day I met him. And I felt this, I knew, because what I would go up to teachers and I would say to them, what I wanted in life, I wanted enlightened and I wanted self-realization. And I would hear their responses. And then when I said that to him, he responded in a way that all other teachers never responded in. He looked at me and says,

what are you willing to do for it? Other teachers would be like, yes, I will show you the path. You know, I will show you this and we will do this. And I'm like, eh, that sounds fishy. You know, like my teacher looked at me and says, what are you willing to do for it? I said, I'm willing to give my life.

I'll give up everything and everyone I know to go study with you. And then you looked at me and says, I don't hand out stuff, you have to work for it. And so I will work for it. So you never even promised me, he was just like, okay, what are you gonna do? Let's see.

Let's see it. Now, when you were doing these mundane tasks, like coloring books and things like that, did you ever, like being a deep person, did you ever think about like the meaning behind it? Like there was some kind of structure there that he was trying to teach you besides just seeing if you're willing to. Right.

Or did you have like a karate kid moment? Or later on, like, like, like, like, like, like, it's going to apply to something. That's why I was doing that. But he's evaluating your decisions as you're doing this. No, sometimes it was just pure frustration. And my only goal was to get this stupid coloring down and send a damn book back to him and say, like, I'm done with this.

But my goal was to do it really well every time. And you know what, as I call it every page, I probably cursed every time I call it a page. And I'm like, what the hell? But that was the assignment that was given to me. If I don't understand it, it's okay. I trusted this man and I'm just going to do the work. Right.

And that's really the teacher student relationship, right? You have to trust the teacher. So one of my really good friends is an Olympic gold medalist. She won the gold medal in Beach volleyball. So she's a woman that lives in Australia. She's the only woman in Australia to compete in five consecutive Olympic games. So she had an amazing teacher

and she told me this interesting story. She said, once her teacher, her volleyball teacher, she wanted to win the gold medal since she was like 11, right? She saw it and she says, that's what I want. And I think it took her 17 years or 14 years or something before she won the melt. And her coach made her and her partner,

because there's two people in Beach volleyball, made her and her partner train on the, on the sand for six months with no ball. So imagine training on the sand for six months with no ball. How many people would do that? People could like the guys nuts. Right.

Right. And that's the difference, right? Where once you find a teacher, you have a trust, you understand that he and he or she is someone you really want to learn from, then comes obedience, humility and obedience. And that's why monks take those two vows. Two of the vows that monks take are humility and obedience. Humility is, you don't know shit. So shut up. And the second vows is obedience. Just do what you're told, right? Wags on and wags off. And if you have to do that for six months, just do it because there is going to be a benefit. And the whole reason she told me that they did that was because they had to learn footwork on the sand. The ball was secondary. You need to be able to move on the sand,

you know, in a very, I don't know what way, but they had to without the ball, and they wanted to go metal. Interesting. Do you remember the first time that you were doing something that seemed mundane like that, and you were just, were doing you're doing your job You're listening you're doing it. You're doing it. And then like the aha moment happened like later I'm like, oh wow this is this is why I did this practice and yeah, and some of those aha moments come 20 years later Wow, I've had aha moments just two weeks ago, but something my guru taught me

25 years ago and something I'm like, oh shit, I didn't realize that. How do you know, right? You don't. And sometimes you don't, but they need to be a trust, right? Of following. And you know that this person has walked down the path so many times, they know it really well. It's like you're climbing the Himalayas, you're going with a shipper, and knows how to

get to the top of the mountain, you trust a shipper. You don't go like, I don't think that's the right way. What did a typical day look like when you're at the monastery? What were some of the practices you would do daily? We had to be in the temple at 5.30 in the morning. Between 5.30 and 6 was a traditional Hindu ritual ceremony in the temple. So monks could get up anytime, some monks

woke up at 5.15 and showered and ran to the temple. But if you were a second late, you had to work outdoors all day. So I would wake up anywhere between 4 and 410 in the morning and showered and do my own practices before we started. So with it 536, a ritual 6 to 7, we meditated as a group. We only meditated one hour a day. Because, and that's surprising to most people because people think that monks meditate all day and then they silently sweep the sidewalks. Right. And the Hollywood monks do that. But my whole group's training was about preparation. The whole day was preparation for the one hour meditation. So when we actually sat down for one hour, we were really, really focused. So meditated 67, 77, 30 was exercise, 738 breakfast, and then the monitor is broken up into five groups.

So eight to 1230, we all worked in different groups, and then 1230 to one, we were assigned a different place in the monastery to clean. One to 130 was lunch, one thirty to three was a siesta and a little nap because we got up so early. And then three to six we worked again and then six to seven was time off and then seven to nine we watched TV and then went a bit. Oh wow. And this was every day. Every day. Yeah. So. And the weekends and the weekends we would watch TV a little longer. And you and in the where I'm assuming there were vows of no certain types of foods, no alcohol. The food we only ate three meals a day. So breakfast lunch and dinner, one or two monks were assigned for the food to the food that we ate. And there was a tough part right, giving up because when I was growing up at home in Australia, you know, you want to buy a candy

bar, get a cup of coffee, go on buy a candy bar. And also, you're just eating three meals a day and in between your body is craving for stuff. And the first two years, it's, yeah, two years, it's, it's learning to adapt because for so many years, it could eat whatever it wanted to eat, whenever it wanted to eat. It's used to different tastes and that's a hard on the body, really, really hard, because you have three fixed meals, and you don't get to choose what you're eating,

it's so, and you eat it. Right. And alcohol, the monks actually drank. In our monastery, in our tradition, we were allowed to drink naturally brewed alcohol, not distilled alcohol. Yeah. So you guys could drink beer and wine.

Beer and wine, yeah. In moderation, of course, right? Of course, right. And get implusted every night. So you talk about that the whole day, there's this preparation for meditation, what do you think when you hear these people now that make lots of money on these 15 minutes of meditation or these morning type rituals. And I really feel like it's marketing to what we want, like we kind of alluded to early

on. What are your thoughts of that when you hear that, like the quick morning routine to get you ready for the day? So, one common thing people say to me is, done a funny five, meditate five minutes a day in the morning, well, that helped me concentrate. Two things here. One is meditation doesn't help you concentrate. This is a total fault, Uranus belief. Concentration leads to meditation. You cannot meditate unless you can concentrate. So meditation doesn't help you concentrate. Second is, look at it this way. You've heard of Usain Bolt, right? I don't know much about this guy, but I'm going to make a few

assumptions. And you all correct me if my assumptions are wild. He's from Jamaica. The boy goes to the gym, he's ripped. You've seen him, right? That's not an ounce of that stuff. He works out, right? He drinks a lot of water, I'm sure. I'm sure he stretches because he's doing quick sprints. I'm sure he runs every day when he was competing. His whole day was probably filled with rituals for what? For 9.58 or 5.6 seconds. Not 9.56 seconds supports the whole day. And you need to look at your life that way.

Your whole day is a preparation. At first, your rituals throughout the day is what supports you. Then you start meditation. Right? You can't meditate for five minutes a day, and then the rest of the day practice distraction. Don't lead a life that supports meditation. My guru had a beautiful saying, and he quite often would say that, you know, most people can't meditate because they do not lead a life that supports the practice of meditation. Right? And with the sprinter, his whole day is supporting him so that when he gets on the track for 9.58 seconds, he's the fastest man in the world.

So in the monastery, that's how we looked at our life. We meditate only an hour a day, but the remaining 23 hours was a diligent practice of practicing everything that would support our meditation. So when we actually came to sit down together at 6 a.m., we had been practicing for 23 hours. How good are, how ready are we now to meditate? We were so ready. But people don't prepare, right? People are running into yoga class. Oh my god, I'm almost there, right? Running into the gym, like I'm late for my session. And then they're running out again. How many people prepare to come to the gym?

Not many. I mean, the ones that do or the ones that have been doing it for a long time, I do. Yeah, but I've been doing it for 20-something years. Right. And preparation is key, right? Everything. The better you prepare, the better you perform, right? It's all about preparation. It's what you do not before. Did you find that you were hyper focused on every activity that you were a part of throughout the day while you were in the monastery?

At first, no, because I was never taught how to concentrate. I didn't learn concentration until I joined a monastery. So it wasn't until I went there, there, I learned. But it was easier to learn it there because I was surrounded by monks who can concentrate. And then I was also taught how to. But now I feel I don't have any problem concentration, but not because I'm a master at it or I'm excellent. It's just that I've been practicing it for so many years and I've created those pathways. I've created patterns in my subconscious that trains my awareness to be on one thing at a time.

What does that coaching look like? Like, if you were coaching me on the distracted kid, I come into the monastery. You're my guru. I have a hard time concentrating. What are some of the steps you're taking me with to help me with that? I would say the first thing is I would teach you how the mind works. We wouldn't even learn how to concentrate. I need you to really understand how the mind works. Once you know the mechanics of it, then you can actually start to control it. But if you don't know the mechanics of how the mind works,

then it becomes really difficult. And I don't know anything about the brain. If the mind is what are training. So if you ask me about the prefrontal cortex or the whatever, I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. If you ask me about the mind, that's my training, right? So understanding the mind is so crucial. So even like in, I have a course that's coming out and a book that's coming out purely on concentration, the first big chunk of the book is about the mind, understanding awareness and the mind, really getting people to understand that. Because if you don't understand that, then you can't concentrate. I feel like it's a it's a big misconception. In terms of like the monastery, you have access to your phone, you have access to TV, and you have like all these things that could potentially distract you.

My thoughts about going to a monastery would be to remove all these things. Why were those still available? Because I think one of the brilliant things about my teacher was that he proved to us and show us that technology and material things are not bad. There's nothing wrong with TV, there's nothing wrong with the cell phone, there's nothing wrong with computers, there's nothing wrong with the internet as long as you are in charge. But if you allow the internet or whatever is happening on your computer, on your phone

to dictate your awareness in your mind, then you become a slave to technology. And then it can train you to be distracted. But as long as you're in charge of it, then it's totally fine. What beautiful tools, huh? I can pick up my phone and FaceTime my mom and Australia. Like in a matter of seconds, how amazing is that? I can see her, I can talk to her, I can smile and laugh.

Why is that a bad thing? But I need to be in charge of my phone, and I think in today's world, we allow everything on the phone, everything on the computer, on the internet to dictate where awareness is going, and therefore we become a slave to everyone and everything around us.

It's a tool, like any other tool. Hammer isn't good or bad either, it's all on how you use it. Well, what exactly? That's, I actually used an algae of a knife. OK. A knife? You can stab somebody with it.

Or you can cut fruit with it. Absolutely. You said you were an entrepreneur. What do you do now when you work with clients? What does it kind of work that you're doing with these people? I work with entrepreneurs around the world. I work with one athlete what is the kind of work that you're doing with these people? I work with entrepreneurs around the world. Okay. I work with one athlete, professional player.

And I basically work with them and understanding how the mind works. So that's an area that most of them are very successful at what they do. And but they don't understand the mind. And they want to be better at what they're doing. They want to be, they want to excel. So they want to understand how the mind works. They want to learn how to concentrate, even though they're successful at what they do.

They've never been taught how to concentrate and they want to know how to practice it, how to work with different areas of the mind and understand how things from the past and the subcontinent are sitting, the subcontinent dictates how they behave, how they think, something that might have happened as a child or even in past lives, and how can they work with and adjust those patterns so that they can perform better.

One another saying, and I know, quote, my guru all the time, my teacher, one other beautiful saying that he had is problems are not problems. They're subconscious patterns that need to be adjusted. And I love that saying problems are not problems. They're subconscious patterns that need to be adjusted. And once you understand that, you understand that all you have to do is adjust patterns in your subconscious and you can change so much in your life because so much of the parents in there were either placed in there by you or your surroundings, your family, your school, what you watch on TV, what you listen to, your environment, programs subconscious. So if you can adjust those parents to what you want, you solve the problem.

Do you think that there is a healthy version of concentration and even an unhealthy version? For example, I think of like, we brought up you saying bolt and we could talk about any extreme athlete or musician that is at the highest level. I think we would all agree that they obviously have the ability to hyper concentrate on their skill. Is there a place where that ever becomes unhealthy,

where they become so concentrated on an area like their skill that they took a place where that ever becomes unhealthy, where they become so concentrated on an area like their skill that they took form at a high level, but then maybe it's, they can't do it anywhere else. Like, is there a balance? Yeah, is there an unhealthy balance to that? Or like, what would you say to that? It's a good question. Thank you.

I think the biggest thing we have to understand is that if we don't learn something and we don't learn it well and and we don't practice it, we're not going to become good at it. If you look at these athletes, like professional tennis players, professional soccer players, how much time have they spent learning that craft? If you look at people like in the doll or some of these soccer players in a messy and people like them, some of them are born with amazing skills, but you spend hours and hours with the ball every day. But how much time is actually spent actually learning the art of concentration? So and I think what you were saying is that you can practice these things physically and

the body then learns that. Right. That's a conscious lens. Well, I think of it as something as simple as your house, right? How many times have you walked up and down your stairs or left on the hallway? I could be in the pitch black and just you know. You knocked it out. Yeah, and I don't got to count the steps.

I don't got to reach and touch the wall. Right. I just know because I, my, and it's not that I'm all the sudden hyper focused or concentrated on walking to the bathroom. It's just I've done it so many times that subconsciously my body is neurologically figured out that pattern and movement that I can do it almost unaware. I would only in the house. Right. Right. Exactly. For me, right? Because that's something. And I would think that these super high level athletes, that's they have a similar thing. I mean, we talk about these soccer players,

these basketball players, literally born with the ball in their hand and just never leave it, play it all the time. It becomes almost a part of them in second nature and subconsciously, they move with it without even realizing or being concentrated possibly. So, and I think a lot of them can concentrate because they've never been taught it.

And the ones that I worked with who want to learn to concentrate, their game has completely changed the fact that they understand now how their mind works. And not only that, you know, if you think about, and since working with professional athletes, I realized so many other factors that influenced their mind, what happens in the media, the criticism that they go through, the things that fans say is, how much that impacts their mind, their emotions, what are the tools being given to professional athletes to deal with that?

They don't get a lot. They don't get anything. No training at all. All physical training, but nothing mental. No one trains them how to deal with all of this stuff. Not only that, you might find this interesting. So I actually brought this up on our show about, I don't know, three weeks ago or so. The new Cardinals coach in the NFL coach, young guy, has decided that he's going to give his players during practice cell phone breaks.

So they can go to their phone and check social media. And I thought that was really fascinating to make a move like that. Like when you were trying to focus a team and have them concentrate, I would think, on learning good plays and working together that you were actually going to break the practice up to allow them to do something that I think that would distract them from their ultimate goal. Totally. And because it's probably because the Cardinals' coach doesn't know how to concentrate himself.

Because nobody has taught him. So he doesn't know how to teach his team to concentrate. Because nobody has taught him how to concentrate. One of the guys I work with doesn't look at his phone. Like the whole from the night before the game, he won't look at his phone. No social media, nothing at all. It's more. Like he just goes on a, you know, social media fast all day to the game.

Because he doesn't want his awareness taken to an area of the mind where he could feel upset by something he saw or something. He wants his awareness completely focused on what he has to do, the game he has to do, where awareness goes, energy flows. Right. So we train in creating mental pictures in the mind through visualizations and affirmations and feelings to shape the subconscious, to get the resulting, the results that you want.

What are the results you want and how can you stay concentrated so that you can create it first in the mind before it starts to manifest physically. Are there environments that you find it easier for people to learn concentration and environments that make it more difficult for them to learn concentration? Yeah, I would say, you know, probably yes, but I don't wanna say yes because I think that just gives people a cop out. Oh yeah, like my environment's not the right one.

Yeah, I live in New York City, I work in a company, I travel through the subway, it's crazy, I can't concentrate, I'm like BS, you know, I live in New York City too. I think at the end of the day, you know, the first part of my book that's coming out is all about desire. How badly do you want it? And most people, to be honest with you, don't want it badly enough.

And when my guru asked me, when I told him, I wanted enlightenment and self-realization, he asked me, what are you willing to do for it? And I said, I'm willing to give up my life. So I was willing, you know, in my early 20s, when all my friends were graduating from engineering school with me, they were going out and parties and shagging women and getting drunk and, you know, earning money, buying a car, getting in a pot and traveling the world. Good times.

Good times, right? Well, you and I were. Right. I said no, because I wanted something more. Not that I didn't think those things were great. I wanted something more. And I think today, you know, how many people really want to be concentrated?

Yeah. People don't want it badly. That's just it. That's why I didn't ever get it. I think that most people want to be distracted. I think that a lot of people don't want to sit there and reflect and become more self-aware. I think that's part of the reason.

I think it's the main reason why no one's trying to concentrate. Well, I've heard you brought up a point too of asking people what your purpose is in life. They couldn't find an answer. Is that something that you found really early on? My purpose? Your purpose. Yeah, when I was about eight or nine, I realized it was enlightenment. That's what I wanted in life.

But yeah, I travel and I ask people, especially the entrepreneurs that I work with, that's a topic that I talk to them about, is what's your purpose in life? And they have no idea. But if you ask them, what's the vision or mission of your multi-billion dollar company, they can tell it to you in three seconds. And they've summarized the vision statement of their company down to eight words. You know, one person said to me, who's an entrepreneur, who said to me, she said, we make loans affordable.

We make loans affordable. Four words, isn't that clear? Right? It's so succinct and clear. What's your purpose in life? I have no idea. So how can you know what your business is all about? When I ask you, what's your life about? You have no idea. Because people don't take the time to figure it out. For them, plus or four, we never talk. We need a purpose. And second, we never talk how to go figure it out. So we don't know.

It's like exercise, right? So just if I get on a treadmill, if I lift some weights, is that doing the right thing? No, right? So you've learned how to exercise. You understood the body, the muscles. You know what to do to what to develop, but it took learning it and then practicing it.

And I think in the world, we never get taught life skills. When we go through school, nobody teaches us about the mind. Nobody teaches us how to breathe, how to manage our energy, how to concentrate, how to develop our willpower. We all have willpower, but they never train us how to develop more of it. Like in the monastery, that's one of the biggest things you get trained is how to develop more willpower. How to figure out your purpose in life, be clear about it, how to stay focused on your purpose in life.

But I think all of this comes down to one of my biggest learnings in 2017. I spoke at the World Knowledge Conference in Seoul and South Korea. And they had a, you know, 3,000 people down a bunch of speakers and a lot of politicians were speaking. And one night they had a special dinner and they invited me to come and say, I went out there and dressed like this. And I was having, you know,

chatting with a couple of people and this guy comes up to me and goes, you know, who are you? What's the outfit and the makeup about? You stole my question. American, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and he, his reigns pre-bus, you know,

Donald Trump's former chief of staff. Right, right. And I'm not a Trump supporter. I don't care. But, you know, I treat everyone with respect and we start at chatting and the biggest thing I learned that year was from this man He really you know, so we thought talking and I mentioned something about a talk that bankyu moon the former UN Secretary General had spoken that morning and he said that you know

Our environment is in this critical place right now. We don't do something was screwed He didn't say screwed, but you know, we're in trouble. And I brought that up in my conversation with Ryan's and Ryan's looked at me and he said, the problem with Monkeengman's talk is he did not make the case. And I said, say a little bit more about this because I don't understand what it means when you say make the case. So he said, how do I tell the single mother in Pennsylvania that has two jobs and three kids that she needs to care for the single mother in Pennsylvania that has two jobs and three kids

that she needs to care for the environment? Because all she has about is going from one job to another, coming home exhausted, feeding her kids, getting them showered, helping them with their homework, getting them to bed, and then she's just like, she's pooped, she's just ready to go to sleep and do it all again. She doesn't care about the environment. How do I make her care for the environment? And once I can connect those dots to her and I can make the case for her, she'll do that. So when and this is just like a huge light bulb, you know, I don't know, lit up in my head because I thought to myself, I travel all around the world, I teach people about focus, but I've never ever made the case. Right. Why do you need to focus? I tell people, here's how to concentrate.

Hmm. You're like, oh, why? Once I can make the case to them, then they will buy in, and once they buy in, then you don't have to force them to do it. Deltors do it because they're bought in. And I think that making the case is where you need to start. And the first part of my book is really about making the case. Why do we need to concentrate? What are people missing? You have to sell it to people. We have to sell people on why they need to work out

the right way, need the right way all the time. Otherwise, they're going to want to do it the wrong way, the fast way. The fast way. What are people missing out on when they are not learning how to concentrate? What do they have to gain? How can their lives change?

Yeah, I would say there's so many incentives for concentrating, right? Benefits for concentration. Number one is that ultimately I would like to think that most people want to be happy. I think very few people wake up and say, I want to be miserable today. Right.

Most people want to be happy. How do you be happy? First, you become clear of what you want in life. You identify your purpose in life. You identify who and what is important in your life. Your purpose defines your priorities. Once you identify who and what's important in your life, then when you're doing what you love,

when you're spending time with the people that you love, how do you get the most out of it? So if you love going to the gym and working out for an hour, how do you get the most out of it? You get the most out of it. So if you love going to the gym and working out for an hour, how do you get the most out of it? You get the most out of it by being able to be concentrated while you're doing that. So if I'm, if I love spending time with my best friend and having a glass of wine with him and sitting with him for an hour and chatting, gives me tons of joy and that's a priority in my life. The only way I can get the most out of that experience is learning how to concentrate. If I can give him or her my undivided attention for an hour, I can get the most out of that

experience. The byproduct of that is I feel happiness, right? So to truly, at the end of the day, if you really want to have a life that's a happy life, you really have to be clear who and what's important in your life. And in doing those things, you have to be clear who and what's important in your life and in doing those things you have to be fully present and the only way to be fully present so that you can fully experience those experiences is to be able to be concentrated. Excellent.

Do you think some people just don't know what they're missing because they've never experienced it? So explain it to them like, I think I'm fine. I like things. Everything's fine for me. Yeah. And you know, for a lot of people, one of the things I say to them is that you have one life. You know, you have one life as you. And a lot of people say life is short. I don't believe life is short. I believe life is finite. When I'm stuck in traffic for an hour, life is not short.

Like a long, right? So an hour in traffic is long then. Living on this planet for 10 years is super long. So life is not short, but it's finite. There's a clear definitive end. My question is, what will you say about your life at the end of your life? What will you look back and say, when my Guru was dying, one of the last things he said is that, what an amazing life I would not have traded it for anything in the world. What an amazing life I would not have traded it for anything in the world. What? What an amazing life I would not have traded it for anything in the world. What words do you hear from a dying man? Imagine to be on your deathbed to be able to

look back on your life and go, that was spectacular. How many people can truly say that? Now people always saying, like, oh, you know, right, what others may say about you at the end of your life. You know, I want people to remember me as this so that I don't care. You guys run a business here. For every 10 people that love you, there's two more that hate you. Right? I have an online presence that people that criticize me

and call me a fake, a capitalist, whatever. You know, then there's 10 more people that like me. I don't really don't care what people say, but what I do care is what I say about my life at the end of my life. And I want to, on my debt bed, be able to look back on my life and go, that was fricking spectacular. And the only way I can do that is to identify my priorities in my life.

Who and what's important? Develop this unwavering focus, disability to concentrate so I can stay present in all these important experiences I've identified and want to have in my life. And as the byproduct of that is an experience to feeling of happiness. So you spend 23 years of your life out here in the real world, and then you go to a monastery for 10 years, and then you drop back in again. Yep. Did you have any shell shock? Were there any things that... Wem split up.

I could not believe that. What the hell? Seriously? Who would have thought? No. Josh Michael's gay. Yeah. I mean, women loved him.

I know. So he had some. He had some hands. Make handsome. It's so handsome. Make sense. That's funny. There had to be some things, you know, to, because I imagine what I envisioned for you, probably it was like is the first few years, like you kind of mentioned what the food is, struggling to let go of certain things, creating new behaviors, becoming more self-aware. And then I would think like the back half,

you kind of feel like, I got this shit. I'm like an ninja here, I got this. And then you dropped back in where sex, drugs, temptation, distractions are everywhere. Was there kind of a culture shock, were there things that you almost slipped up or caught yourself being distracted or losing concentration? Did any of that happen for you at all? 100% all of those things.

Oh wow. Anybody that tells you it doesn't is lying. You know, ultimately at the end of the day I learned that we're all human and no matter how good you are and how well trained you will slip up and you will fail. The only difference between someone that's well trained and not well trained is that they can pick themselves up and keep going again and they're okay with their failure. And I'm okay with my failure. You know, I have no problem. Other people are not okay with my failure. They see me mess up and they go, look at them.

And I get that all the time. But I'm okay. I failed a million times and I'll fail a million more times. And I'm totally okay with that. I look at myself as a building under construction. There's renovation work going, there's nails and shit lying around and it's okay. It's not done yet. And I would say, you know, in terms of brea jussman, it wasn't difficult as difficult as people thought it was. I think I was so determined. After my guru died, things changed a little bit in the monastery.

By the third of the monks left. I stayed seven more years. I felt we were going separate paths. My vows came up for renewal, and I didn't want to renew them. I said, I should leave and go out and just do my own thing. We were, we weren't aligned in my eyes, right? So when I came out, my goal was to, I literally wanted to rebuild a whole place myself. I'm going to recreate my own monastery, which is what my wife and I are doing now. We're building a retreat center in Costa Rica.

We have 33 acres of land. Oh, wow. And we're building a botanical garden because we love the environment. So we planted about 1,600 plants in trees. I'm gonna plant a lot more. And we'll start construction next year and we'll build a retreat center

where we want to train people who really want to do the work. Right? But so that was a big drive. So when I came out, I would say, I was really driven to recre- it's not gonna be a monastery, obviously But so that was a big drive. So when I came out, I would say I was really driven to rec it's not going to be a monastery. Obviously, I'm not a monk anymore, but it's going to be an ashram, which is a spiritual center where people can come to learn about

themselves, bring their kids to learn how to concentrate and develop their will. But I would say, I was I am still very, very focused. So I think a lot of my, I just knew what I wanted to do. And that, because the more I knew, because I knew so much what I wanted, it was very easy to not be distracted. But that doesn't mean you don't get distracted and you don't slip up and you don't make mistakes. Those happen all the time. And it's fascinating to me that people always expect someone to be perfect. And I just don't understand that. You know, Serena Williams gets upset, smashes her tennis rack and on the floor, on the court.

We all freak out. Everybody freaks out. And I'm like, why? Why are you freaking out? All she said she can do is play tennis. She didn't say she was not in it. She doesn't get upset that she's always zen. She didn't say she's a master, this a master, that.

Why do we put perfectionism on people that are successful? Yeah, they call it the halo effect in celebrities and politicians. They bank on it. If somebody's really talented at one thing, we assume that they're good at everything. So, oh, you're really good at music, therefore you're a good person.

Well, we know that's not true. Yeah, and it's so wrong to do that. I agree. It's not fair. What kind of TV are the monks watching? I feel like you'd be like a sign-filled watcher. What do you guys watch in there? We watch monk.

We watch, we watch monk. I mean, that's the truth. There's no way you're guys watch in there? We watch, we watch Monk. Watch, we watch Monk. I mean, that makes sense. There's no way you're watching that in there. We totally watch Monk. No, we're really, I mean, that's how it works. What would Monk watch? Monk. That's not a trick question.

The mid-a show for us. We did. We watch Monk. We watch a bit of news. So we watch news every day to keep up with current affairs. We want a lot of documentaries, national geographic, different kind of history channel. And we want to come at ease. One monk was in charge of TV. So he, everything was pre-recorded. And what's like Steve Martin comedy stuff like that. Three amigos or whatever.

Oh, what a classic. Classic, right? Classic. Yeah. Did you, did you meet your wife when you got out? Yeah, I met my wife. Actually met her when I was still a monk, but it wasn't like almost a year or so later that we, after I left that we got reconnected again. And, and I was living up in Rochester, New York, and she was living in New York City. We got in touch and then went from there. Awesome, you have a child? I've six and a half month old daughter. Oh, congratulations. Congratulations.

Yeah, excellent. What are the biggest challenges that you have now as a husband and a father with all your training and all that? What are some of the biggest challenges that you have? I would say as a father, I realize I'm not concentrated enough. I really have so much more work to do in the sense that, you know, I, I want to the daughter, right?

And now I have a daughter. So I, I don't want to be an absent parent in the sense that I want to be engaged. I, I want to change a diapers. I feed it every night, every night I'm home. I do the late night feed. I have not missed one. You know, I change a diapers. I feed it every night. Every night I'm home. I do the late night feed. I'm not missed one You know, I change a diapers. I spend time with her. I play with her. I want to be engaged and that takes up Maybe another two hours sometimes two and a half three hours on my day wiped off

So now I got three hours gone that I used to have so now I need to be even more hyperfocus I need to make tougher decisions of who I want to spend time with, who I don't want to spend time with. I need to look at my business and go, what do I need to cut out, what I need to focus on a lot more. So her coming into my life has really made me look at my life and see if I'm really clear about my priorities and really work on myself being even more focused than I am.

Excellent, that's what kids do. You did it for me. We kind of glaze over really quick, the makeup. Explain the three lines and the dot. Explain it to me. I've never heard anyone break it down before. Yeah, the three lines on my forehead is a monk Wi-Fi. Oh, seriously.

You got three bars, so you're doing well. I have great connection with God. The three lines on my forehead is a monk Wi-Fi You got three bars so you're doing well. I have great connection with God Sometimes it's to it's not so static The information of the universe right here.. The little red dots out blinking. So I'm a Hindu priest in Hinduism. There are four sex and I belong to one sect and we were three lines to represent the sex. It's ash. The first line at the bottom represents your ego. So quite

often in spirituality, they say you shouldn't have an ego. And the philosophy we subscribe to, we don't believe that we believe everybody has an ego. As long as you have a personality, you have preference of food and drink, that's an ego. The goal is to cultivate a positive ego, someone who's kind, who's generous, who's ambitious, who's industrious, who's compassionate. So it's okay to have an ego, cultivate a positive ego. The second line is karma, the law of cause and effect. Karma has two parts action and reaction. Every thoughtward indeed has repercussion. How you think shapes so much, how you speak shapes so much, and how you what you do

shape so much of your life. That's one part of so by controlling your thoughtwards indeed you can control a lot of your life. And the other half of karma is the reaction part of it. So if you came up to me and say, hey, Dandapani, your show is ugly, I could hit you. I'll say, what a great opportunity to go shopping. How I respond also determines my outcome. So by controlling your actions and reactions, you can control a lot of what happens to you in your everyday life. And then the third line is delusion, saying that quite often in life,

we forget who and what is important in our life, and we get distracted by things, and people that are not important. So always remembering what are your priorities in life, who are your priorities in life, and bringing your focus back to that. And that's clear, right? Always, you know what your purpose is, your purpose defines your priorities, stay focused on your priorities. The byproduct of that is you feel happy.

Since you're defining stuff for us, you have to define enlightenment to me also. What is the definition of that? Yeah, and that's a really great question, right? Because very few people actually ask me that question. And we have to understand that everybody that uses the word enlightenment has a different definition of it. Right. So, it's very important to understand that everybody that uses the word enlightenment has a different definition of it. So it's very important to ask that. So in the philosophy I subscribe to, one term is called self-realization,

and a very simplified way of explaining this is through deep meditation I realize that God and me are one and the same being. Now we have to define God because God could be a guy with a beard in heaven, could be. We define God as pure, intelligent energy permeating everything. So energy inside of me, you, the trees, the stones, even the dog poop on the sidewalk, that one energy in everything, when I realized through de-manitation, I am one with that energy. That is one aspect towards self-realization and enlightenment. Very cool. Excellent. Thank you. You're welcome. This has been great.

Yeah. This has been really, really great. Oh, I'm glad. Yeah. Thank you very much for coming on the show. Well, thank you for having me here on a Sunday. Yeah, you're a great guy, but you're also very personable down to earth and just funny. Funny and awesome. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Yeah, yeah. I love it. It's the Australian sense of humor. I love it. Thank you. We get along. Thank you very, very much for coming on the show. Thank you. Really appreciate that. I love it. It's the Australian sense of human. I love it. Thank you very very much for coming on the show. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically

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