Dandapani, THE POWER OF UNWAVERING FOCUS
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[0:58]Dandapani is the author of the power of unwavering focused.
[1:02]He is a Hindu priest, entrepreneur, and former monk of 10 years.
[1:06]An internationally renowned speaker and world-leading expert on leveraging the human mind to create a life and purpose and joy,
[1:13]Dandapani has shared the stage with world-renowned leaders such as Hillary Clinton, Ban Ki-moon, and former French President Francois Hollande.
[1:20]He and his wife are currently creating a 33-acre retreat center and botanical garden in Costa Rica to further their mission of inspiring personal growth and self-transformation.
[1:29]Welcome, Dandapani. Thank you so much for coming on Momstone of Time Treat books to discuss the power of unwavering focus.
[1:36]You're most welcome. Thank you for having me.
[1:39]This is the most needed guidebook today. I feel like no one has, like, it's so hard for people to focus in on anything and our attention is so all over the place.
[1:50]And I was literally running around and I was like, telling my kids, I was like, you guys, I can't even read the book.
[1:55]The power of unwavering focus because I can't even focus on it because I'm doing too many other things.
[2:00]So anyway, it was really funny and perfectly timed. So thank you for this.
[2:04]You're most welcome. No, I have all the things I think we need to learn.
[2:09]One of the first things we need to learn first is the ability to focus.
[2:13]You know, when I was talking to a few publishers before picking one, one of the publishers asked me, why do you think your book is so important?
[2:19]And I said, well, in the world of books, and I'm no expert in the world of books, I can only imagine two things that important. One is the ability to read.
[2:29]And second is the ability to focus because if I can't focus on a page long enough, how am I actually going to get the essence of what the authors trying to tell me, be it on relationships, business, whatever it may be.
[2:42]So if I can't focus, like you said, I can't sit down long enough to even read the book to learn from it.
[2:48]And the ability to focus on like mandatory criteria to get started.
[2:55]Yes. You start the book by giving us your very interesting background and how you were a monk and how you left.
[3:02]And then next thing you know, you're consulting to entrepreneurs and you basically found the secret sauce of how to live the best life and that the quest for happiness. Well, let me not give the answer away.
[3:13]Tell us about your background first and how you came to this whole body of work.
[3:18]Yeah. So I wanted to be a monk since I was four or five years old, went to school, graduated from university with a degree in engineering.
[3:24]As soon as I graduated, moved to Hawaii where there's a traditional Hindu monastery, so lived as an ordained Hindu monk.
[3:31]I know there's a lot of people that go stay somewhere and do a retreat for three months and say I'm a monk and I'm like seriously, you know, I carry a baby doesn't make me a mom.
[3:41]So I lived as an ordained monk for 10 years. My balance expired. I decided not to renew them. I left no longer a monk, I'm a Hindu priest and as a Hindu priest, I can get married to have a family working like nals being entrepreneur.
[3:53]So I'm going to go for a second. So you get in when you're a Hindu monk every every 10 years, you have to decide whether or not you want to keep going. Is that how it works?
[4:02]No, it's actually every two years. So every two years your balance come up for renewal. You have the choice to renew them. And after about 10 to 14 years of training, then you take lifetime balance.
[4:12]It's almost like you date, then you marry, unless you're in Vegas where you marry and then you date.
[4:19]I'm not going to date.
[4:20]Okay.
[4:21]Exactly. That would be a fun movie.
[4:23]But yeah, so I chose not to renew it the first time around and then some I live as a priest and I'm a Hindu priest.
[4:33]As an entrepreneur, work as an advisor to athletes and entrepreneurs helping them understand the mind and leverage that understanding and help them to focus so they can be good at what they do.
[4:44]And yeah, and I used to live in New York for 11 years and two years ago, my wife and I moved down to Costa Rica and we're creating a spiritual sanctuary and a botanical garden of the year.
[4:53]And that's where I'm currently.
[4:55]Wow. That's I mean, for listeners, I'm sorry that you're not getting the view that I'm getting right now because as we're having our nice normal book chat, I get to look at like the most lush, beautiful background with like the giant blue sky and trees.
[5:10]I feel like I'm going on vacation this podcast. So thank you.
[5:14]Okay. So in the book, you outline different tools that we can all use to live better lives and I'm not going to say happier because you addressed this in the book that the pursuit of happiness to achieve happiness.
[5:28]You have to do things that make your life worth living.
[5:31]and thereby giving you happiness, you can just try to run around and be happy. So talk to us all about that.
[5:39]You know, so I always say another pursuit happened as rather pursue a lifestyle where the byproduct of the lifestyle results and happiness.
[5:45]So what how can you design a life or structure a life where the majority of that like when it's often happiness, there is going to be a percentage of that life that's never going to be happy.
[5:55]that I do that don't make me happy. You know, whatever it may be.
[6:01]Hopefully not this.
[6:03]Yeah, that's not this.
[6:05]It's conversation.
[6:07]But no, but there's just things in everyone's life, whatever it may be.
[6:11]You know, I have a for you all, you know, when she was a baby, you know, we get up in the middle of the night to feed her.
[6:17]Yeah, is it fun? No, you know, I'd rather be sleeping, but it's just part of life.
[6:22]But how do we design to the majority of life results and the people happiness, contentment, joy, fulfillment?
[6:29]And that's really the key thing.
[6:31]And once we can identify those lifestyles, those things, then focus on every time we get distracted, bring awareness back to those things.
[6:41]So the first step.
[6:43]First two steps is actually learning how to focus and then identifying those things and people, those lifestyles that result in the feeling of happiness.
[6:53]And those two things kind of go ahead and handle that.
[6:56]I found in talking to peers and contemporaries about, you know, finding because I feel like I have found what gives my life meaning and thereby I am happier and not every moment is great.
[7:07]I was summarizing this from my daughter, my younger daughter, I have four kids and she was like, mom, you're always like, I have so many emails.
[7:14]They're like, I can't get all this stuff done.
[7:16]And I'm like, yeah, I know, but I'm actually happy underneath.
[7:19]I think the big misconception to kind of bring to the surface is that happiness is a state we all we're going to be in.
[7:28]And people look at me having lived this a month for 10 years and, you know, doing this when I'm doing like, you know, you got your life all figured out.
[7:34]You must be happy and blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, I don't.
[7:38]And it's a constant striving.
[7:40]It's a constant working to be more focused to gain more clarity of what's important, who's important, reviewing that working at it and striving.
[7:48]It's not a state of, you know, people put this bullshit post on Instagram and social media, be happy, be present, you know, just be like, be what, you know, you got to be working at it all the time.
[8:01]It's not a state of passiveness of not doing anything.
[8:05]And that's what people mistake, monastic life to be. It's not.
[8:09]And all the months I lived with, you know, some have been living there for 30, 40, 50 years on a state of constantly working to overcome their lower nature to be a better human being, to strive to be better.
[8:24]No one was just being happy. They got cranky there to deal with emotions there to deal with body pains, emotional things that come up in life.
[8:33]A cranky monk or whatever it may be.
[8:37]All right, let's, let's amend our movie to make it a cranky monk goes to Vegas. I think we're getting this better.
[8:45]I love it. I think it's going to be blockbuster.
[8:48]You write that. You write that. I'll go watch it. There is just this whole study in the, in the New York Times yesterday or maybe that you're not, I don't know about relationships.
[8:57]And of course, this is nothing really earth-shattering and new, but just again that they studied all these people over the lifespan and found out that the key to sort of overall feelings of worth and happiness were close relationships.
[9:10]And obviously the opposite of that was like shorter lifespan loneliness and all that. That's not something you can necessarily work towards unless you have some sort of something that's already kind of good or recognizing the better.
[9:24]Like you can't just say for a lonely person to say like, I'm just not going to be lonely. I'm going to focus on better relationships.
[9:30]I'm going to be hard. We're saying I'm going to start a company or I'm going to do this is something actionable, but involves other people entering into that with you.
[9:39]So how do you use your tools to accomplish that if you're trying to do that or should you not even pay attention to that?
[9:48]Well, I think again going back to clarity of what are the things and who are the things, who are the people that bring you joy for so many.
[10:00]You know contentment identifying that's the first step and then the second step really, you know, being able to focus on that the third step is
[10:09]Simplifying life to those people and those things
[10:13]You know your podcast is you know, I'm so I don't have time to read but you know, yes
[10:18]I I'm a parent and I am actively engaged in my daughter's life and I have only one child and you have four
[10:25]I can imagine only more demands more maths to feed
[10:29]But it's not that we're leading faster lives. It's we're doing too much
[10:35]And we need to simplify if you look at time being finite being only 24 hours a day and I also look as energy being
[10:43]Finite because there is a point in time every night when I go that's it. I'm spent. I have nothing left to give
[10:51]Myself or anyone. I'm going to bed
[10:54]So if my energy is finite, how am I dividing my finite energy throughout the day
[11:01]Between everything and everyone in my life
[11:04]And I give a simple analogy if I have a garden bed and one watering can I can water that garden bed and make everything in the garden bed grow
[11:12]The following year I had 99 mog garden beds
[11:16]But still watering water and can
[11:18]What's going to grow? Nothing because one watering can is not enough to water a hundred garden beds
[11:24]So as we look at our lies
[11:27]Ask ourselves, you know, we only have so much energy each day
[11:31]I mean you get exhausted at night. I must you or tired
[11:35]That's a point. But some to at some point. Although last night
[11:38]I have to say it was like 1230 and I was still going and going and then like all my devices
[11:42]Like ran out of juice and I was like if none of my devices can keep up with me. I have to just go to bed
[11:49]Yes, but the reality is that you couldn't do it every night
[11:54]No, no, I don't do it every night. Yeah. Yeah, and look
[11:57]I stayed up to one two three in the morning working on nights when I had to
[12:01]But could I do it every single day? And I'm not trying to
[12:06]I'm not trying to glamorize that or brag about it. Like I'm not proud of it
[12:11]You know, I prefer to go to bed at 10 o'clock and like watch TV with my husband
[12:14]It's just that it's hard to make all that work, but I totally see your point
[12:19]No, so that the point the point is that we have a finite amount of energy
[12:22]And if we can be clear who and what's important and simplified a number of garden beds in our life
[12:27]And just say each garden bed represented a person. Oh, I think we want today invest in
[12:33]You know, garden bed a your husband got in a garden bed b was the first child second child that child
[12:39]Then you think like okay, I only have one watering can how am I going to work make this work at some point
[12:45]I'm going to run out of water at some point a day and a lot of energy
[12:48]So how do we simplify our life and or you take the gardens
[12:54]And you start sub-dividing and you get other people to help you like oversee with their watering cans
[13:00]Other parts of your garden so that you have like a whole estate
[13:04]You could
[13:07]As an analogy. Yes, that works fine. Look. We planted four to five thousand trees. I have guys for me
[13:12]Plants out there. I have an irrigation system that's taking care of the botanical garden, but
[13:18]The analogy with my own life and what I personally get involved in who I get personally involved in I need to
[13:26]Constantly bring that number down. Yeah, because I need to make sure if I want to nurture relationship
[13:34]With my daughter with my wife or a friend. I need to make sure I can dedicate sufficient time
[13:39]I can dedicate sufficient energy
[13:41]To nurture that you know, I am not the guy that goes out when I'm traveling and have half an hour meetings back to pack
[13:48]I just don't do that if I'm going to meet a friend. I'll sit down with him or her for two hours and
[13:55]Have a cup of coffee glass of wine
[13:57]Can so this time I want to invest for rather than meeting
[14:02]20 people while I'm traveling to London or Munich or wherever and maybe I'll meet two people and have two
[14:09]Two hour long conversation because the doors of relationship track children to invest in
[14:14]That becomes rewarding to me that becomes fulfilling. Yes, I post like okay
[14:19]Got half an hour. How's it going? How's the family? How's your wife your kids good? How's business business good?
[14:23]Next time you feeling better now? Are you meaning your goal to great? Okay, I gotta go. It was really nice catching up with you
[14:29]I'm like what the hell this happens
[14:34]You know
[14:35]And then you get so busy you're texting people emojis
[14:39]I get an emoji from someone happy new year with their little you know
[14:43]Firecracker and I'm like well that tells me how much I mean to you one emoji
[14:50]That's all the time you can spare for me is one emoji of firecracker emoji in New Year's Day
[14:55]You couldn't spend 15 seconds because I know you can type fast on your phone. We all can
[15:01]We can spend 15 seconds to go happy new year. I hope this year
[15:06]We'll be rewarding for you and fulfilling
[15:09]We have more clarity around your life if there's any way I can be of support or you know
[15:13]Your friendship means a lot to me and that will take like 20 seconds to write that down
[15:18]And no one emoji is good enough send it off
[15:21]So I don't want to cultivate those right I don't want to go through life where my life is just a sense of the emojis and 20 minute meetings
[15:28]I want deeper relationships more fulfilling relationships where I genuinely can have time
[15:35]To do that. I need to be clear who and what's important. I need to simplify my life to that and actually focus on those things
[15:43]I want to get to the end of my life and go wow
[15:47]I don't remember what the hell I did the last 80 years
[15:49]You know, it's just flew by and and leave on fulfill less is better always
[15:57]And especially less that's in alignment with you your values your guidelines your purpose
[16:05]That becomes rewarding and fulfilling but what if that's not as fulfilling to someone else
[16:11]Like no, I get into choice, right? It's a choice. Yeah, nobody
[16:15]I had a workshop somebody asked me in in Moscow
[16:19]I gave a little introduction of who I am my background
[16:22]And then I said we're gonna start and it was calling wavering focuses guy rushing guys sing the front row on
[16:28]Jump top all emotional. It's like why do I need to live a focus life?
[16:32]Why can't I be all over the place and do a million different things and why do I need to live a focus life?
[16:36]I'm gonna like you don't have to
[16:39]This is a workshop for people who want to live a focus
[16:42]I'm not sure why you're here
[16:44]Why did you sign up for this?
[16:46]I've been saying everybody has to live a focus life
[16:49]You know, I don't go to a Chinese cooking class if I want to let out a make Indian food
[16:54]You know, why the hell did I turn up here? Why are you here?
[16:56]I'm asking you to you know, you can do whatever the hell you want. It's your your life
[17:01]But for those who are listening on this, you know
[17:05]What I live a more rewarding life to want to be more focused and be more present
[17:10]Have more rewarding conversations more rewarding time with the people and things that they love
[17:15]Tune in on this episode
[17:17]If you don't want to totally call
[17:22]People think it's like a blanket statement. I'm making for everyone. I'm like no, it's your life
[17:26]Do whatever the hell you want with it
[17:28]Okay, but you have an underlying kind of argument that if you have deeper connections and more focus you will feel more fulfilled
[17:37]Right, it's not kind of the undercurrent though that you can make a choice
[17:40]But it won't lead to as much fulfillment and satisfaction and
[17:45]as the as the other option which you're presenting to us
[17:49]Exactly, and then you have the choice because some people might say you know what?
[17:53]I don't really want to fill in life. I just want to skim the surface all the way to the end
[17:59]I just want to be shallow all the way to the end. I don't want to go an error in deep
[18:04]For me when I lived in the monastery and my guru trained me
[18:08]The only 27 months in the monastery
[18:10]So he personally trained is monastic
[18:13]When he sat with me and gave me his fingers about 50 years older than me and he gave me his undivided attention
[18:20]And I spoke and he listened
[18:23]Genuinely listened to every word that was coming out of my mouth
[18:27]Was in texting wasn't doing anything else. He was just completely present through his ability to focus
[18:33]I felt so loved. I felt he actually cared what I was saying. I mean, they're like holy crap when you care. Why?
[18:40]You know no one has
[18:42]So I mean you value what I have to say he valued my presidency valued my time
[18:49]He valued my energy
[18:51]In what a lot of display of love
[18:55]genuine love and care
[18:57]And that experience year after year
[19:01]Was so rewarding to me as as a human being
[19:05]Yeah, now I do my best to do it with whoever I'm with
[19:10]You know if I'm talking to somebody my team my family
[19:15]Even a stranger if I happen to talk I give them my undivided attention to tell them like I ain't completely here with you
[19:22]And I can do that because I can focus
[19:25]When you're talking I'm not drifting away and going like
[19:27]I think it should give pieces and I love what did you say
[19:32]No, I I am here and I'm listening to everything you're saying and because I can be focused
[19:38]I can be present and then I can also have the ability to sense
[19:43]What you're not saying to me or maybe what you want to say to me
[19:47]That you may be afraid or struggling to say but you still want to share with me
[19:53]And I can better
[19:55]Said to you help you my daughter comes up to me
[20:00]I'll be able to articulate everything clearly, but I can sense because I can be completely
[20:04]present through my ability to focus what he may be feeling.
[20:08]If he's sad or afraid and then I can choose how I want to respond to that, and that to
[20:14]me is fulfilling because now I'm creating a deeper relationship.
[20:19]I know relationships just don't get me wrong, but I just know that by being focused,
[20:25]I can be present and by being present, I can begin that process of creating a better
[20:33]relationship.
[20:34]Wow.
[20:35]Well, I feel like I'm being present with you.
[20:38]Do you feel how much I care and I'm paying attention?
[20:43]I do.
[20:44]I do.
[20:45]You're doing an amazing job.
[20:48]So does this excuse?
[20:49]Does the fact that this all comes back to me, of course, does the fact I always focus when
[20:54]I'm doing podcasts?
[20:55]It's why I love it.
[20:56]I love being able to learn about someone and have no distraction, but I am guilty of the
[21:01]happy New Year one emoji thing with a lot of people.
[21:05]I have to say, so I think everyone, I guess it goes back to your point, focusing doesn't
[21:11]have to mean that every relationship you have requires two hours of sit down, right?
[21:16]I think you can be deep and intentional and focused for half an hour.
[21:19]Get a lot out of that and not with everyone in your life.
[21:23]And that's why simplification is critical, right?
[21:26]Because if you have 100 people, how do you spend two hours with 100 people?
[21:29]But if you have fewer people, relationships you do want to call today, that it's a two-way
[21:35]street, then you can spend more time with those people and even things that you love.
[21:42]I love doing a lot of things.
[21:43]I love carpentry.
[21:44]I love gardening.
[21:45]I love this.
[21:46]I love that.
[21:47]I get to make a choice of what is more important to me.
[21:53]Coming back to New Year, every new year, I spent an hour and a half or so leaving voice
[22:01]messages to the people that met attendees, each voice message would at least be a minute
[22:06]to two minutes long.
[22:09]I get on WhatsApp, which is my primary vehicle of communication, and I leave a WhatsApp message.
[22:15]I don't want to say, hey, Happy New Year, I'm going to click the little thing that explodes
[22:20]so when they open the message, it's like sparkle and stuff.
[22:23]No, I live with voice messages and go like, hey, Joe, I'm taking, you know, Julie,
[22:27]how are you guys doing?
[22:28]And there's a whole lot, you know, that last year, you know, we had dinner and that was
[22:33]so wonderful.
[22:34]And I love the topics we talked about and we mentioned to be about, you know, your mother-in-law
[22:39]was quite sick and I hope she's doing better or, you know, and just letting you know, I'm
[22:44]thinking about you and, you know, I'm here if you ever want to reach out, you know, and
[22:50]I really hope that we can make plans with each other this year and just actually put
[22:54]some thought and energy into it.
[22:56]You're a really good friend, obviously.
[22:58]Like, you're done.
[23:00]I want you to be right.
[23:01]My guru taught me through his example.
[23:04]He was a good friend to me.
[23:08]He showed to take even two minutes out and be focused and present, like you said, I can feel
[23:17]like 10 minutes.
[23:20]It doesn't have to be a two-hour call, it can be a half an hour in completely being
[23:24]focused and that person feels like, oh my God, I just felt like I said with that person
[23:28]two hours.
[23:29]And what went on in your life before where you ended up becoming a monk who really could
[23:37]thrive in the attention and the love shared by this other monk.
[23:42]Like what in you needed that?
[23:44]Like what was there something missing before?
[23:46]Why were you drawn to that?
[23:48]Like where did that come from in you?
[23:50]That was not what I went to the monastery to learn.
[23:53]That was one of the first tools he taught me in order to make progress on this virtual
[23:59]path.
[24:00]What drew me to the monastery was that things in life I tracked in the nature, you know,
[24:04]and I realized that as a child, seven, eight years old, nine years old, I'm like, everything
[24:08]is created, it exists for a while and then it goes away and I go like, that fricking sucks.
[24:15]Yeah, because I remember going to my cousin's birthday party and older my brothers and
[24:19]I excited and the parents drive us over to my cousin's house and eat all my cousins, you
[24:23]know, we cake with balloons, we chase each other around for four or five hours while parents
[24:28]hang on and chat and then we get in the car and we drive home and I remember looking
[24:31]out the window thinking of myself, that's it.
[24:34]It ends.
[24:36]That sucks.
[24:37]Mom said, you know, we didn't grow our wealth.
[24:38]The amount is going to go eat ice cream, that might be like once every six months or something
[24:42]and go out and eat ice cream and say that every drop and then we go home in it and I'm
[24:48]like, what the hell is this game?
[24:51]You know, it's going through life just during this over and over again, it's a Truman
[24:55]show.
[24:56]I mean, this just seems mindless.
[24:59]What in life is the constant?
[25:01]What doesn't change in life?
[25:03]Is there a deeper meaning to it?
[25:05]It just seems kind of pointless that everybody just goes through the same process, go to
[25:11]school.
[25:12]Get a job, get married, have kids, have grandkids go on holidays, pay bills, get all.
[25:18]Die.
[25:19]Okay, repeat again, but I'll just do the same thing, you know, and just say, that's life
[25:25]and it just makes sense to me that must be something more.
[25:29]I mean, can we just stop in a really think about this for a second?
[25:33]So that's what drew me to the monastery that find out what is there, something more
[25:38]in life and then these are the tools that I learned, I'm understanding the mind and learning
[25:44]to focus because in the pursuit of finding, is there something more in life?
[25:49]We need the ability to focus.
[25:51]If I can't concentrate long enough, how can I stay on a subject to go deeper into it?
[25:58]And did you find your answer?
[25:59]Yes.
[26:01]Is there more to it?
[26:03]There is more to it.
[26:05]What is it?
[26:10]Well, in the past 10 years, save me 10 years of being a monk and just like lay it out,
[26:15]lay it out for me here.
[26:16]Shaving your head and everything in the whole world.
[26:18]Yeah, I'd rather keep my hair, but if I could just know what the point of it all is,
[26:22]that would be good.
[26:25]And again, it's based on the philosophy that you subscribe to and again, it's not for
[26:28]everyone.
[26:29]And the philosophy that I subscribe to is that divinity of God is in everything and we look
[26:35]at divinity in a very simplified way as pure energy, permeating everything you need,
[26:40]the trees, the stones, everything.
[26:42]How can we go within us and experience that divinity inside of us?
[26:48]If we say divinity is pure energy, we love the more dynamic states energy cannot be created
[26:54]or destroyed, but you can transform energy from one thing to another.
[26:57]Energy can change shapes, right?
[27:00]Change forms, but at the essence of it, it's still energy.
[27:06]How do we go within and experience divinity inside of us?
[27:09]The one thing that doesn't change in where in its very essence, it's the purest form
[27:16]of us that exists in all things, all matter, everywhere that continues to function and
[27:24]exist long after physical body has died.
[27:30]So it's kind of the concept of the soul, essentially?
[27:34]Yes.
[27:35]The essence of the soul and not the outer layers of the soul puts on personalities and
[27:42]emotions and things like that.
[27:45]How do we go to the essence of that soul, which is divinity?
[27:50]And you believe that the soul and divinity lives on?
[27:54]Yes.
[27:55]That soul, that divinity who's never created or never destroyed, always exists.
[28:03]And we can experience that divinity inside of us.
[28:08]It's not to be sought outside, we can experience it in nature and things, but the greatest
[28:13]experience is to experience it inside of us.
[28:17]That gives strength to us, that gives confidence to us, that gives hope, that life
[28:25]is just not these years that we're here on this planet, that it continues beyond that.
[28:32]My daughter at four has asked me questions about death and dying.
[28:35]It's just that, to me, the other day, that I don't want you to die, but it's good
[28:42]to have that conversation.
[28:44]It's good for her to understand a philosophy, understanding that, yes, a physical body
[28:51]sees it to exist, but the soul inside of us, the pure energy, is never created or destroyed.
[28:59]The law of science.
[29:01]Okay.
[29:02]I'm going to go with that.
[29:03]Awesome.
[29:06]I like it.
[29:07]I need that.
[29:08]Thank you.
[29:09]And look, you know, that's at a deeper level, you know, and I rarely, honestly, talk
[29:16]about that, because for me, you know, I had somebody ask me the other day, so what kind
[29:20]of deeper philosophy do you believe that of finer dimensions and inner dimensions?
[29:24]And I say, like, look, you can talk about that, so the cows come home.
[29:28]For me, it's like, how the hell do I get through my day and make sure I'm having a
[29:32]life that I can sustain and that is rewarding to me for that, I would say, you know, break
[29:37]it down into a few steps, gain clarity of purpose, you know, let your purpose define your
[29:42]priority.
[29:43]It's like, who and what is the important in your life?
[29:45]And that's a basic question, you know, listeners can ask themselves and write that down.
[29:51]Don't say family.
[29:53]What the hell does that mean?
[29:54]Who in your family?
[29:55]I'm bad, cousin, I'll go in law, be specific, secondest.
[30:00]learn to focus. The book is that everything you need to know how to focus is in the book.
[30:04]Third step simplify your life. Simplify to those people and things that truly matter because
[30:12]always remember finite time, finite energy, yes you can hire people to outsource things,
[30:17]but at the end of the day you have a finite amount of energy and and the key is not balance.
[30:23]I prefer to use the work proportionate because a lot of times you say think balance life right
[30:29]balance between work and life. I have not figured out how to lift up, but proportionate means
[30:36]I can say okay 70% of my life is work and then I have to divide between me, my family, kids,
[30:43]whatever it is. So how do I carve it out in proportion as opposed to 5050 because I don't think
[30:48]that's a reality? And then if you think in those three steps, purpose, priorities, focus and simplify,
[30:56]then now you can start creating a life in that practical steps to actually follow
[31:04]just how creating a life that is more rewarding. And I use the word rewarding because that
[31:09]can mean more joyous, more uplifting, more fulfilling, more content, more peaceful, harmonious,
[31:18]dealing with people that constantly make you upset, angry, annoyed.
[31:22]What other than maybe, all right. Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm sorry, we have to end because the
[31:30]podcast is like a certain amount, but I'm like, I'm getting the meaning of life here. Like this is
[31:34]important. This is changing how I feel the world, but I got it. And I don't even have to go to the
[31:39]monastery. Yeah, and I don't even have to go to the monastery. I got my view of Costa Rica right here.
[31:44]Anyway, I should be paying you for this. You know, it's like I had a session or something.
[31:49]Anyway, okay, done to funny. That was amazing. Thank you so much. And thank you for
[31:55]me. Thank you for a great conversation. And thank you for asking great questions. Thank you for
[31:58]being able to be focused. Thank you. Happy New Year. Thanks for listening to this episode of
[32:11]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and
[32:16]at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebi Owens.com
[32:21]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[32:25]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. Heck, texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to
[32:30]Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.