Unwavering Focus with Dandapani

I think God has a bad reputation and people are so afraid to use the word God that almost everybody in their dog now uses the word univis well the universe will show me the way and I'm just gonna let the universe work through me you know the universe will guide me I actually said to somebody once when they said that the word universe when I look in Webster's I think it defines it as the entire solar system galaxies and planets and you know black holes that are all around us so when you're saying the universe will guide you are you saying that Pluto meets with Saturn and Uranus to talk about your life and where it's going a question asked courageously answered honestly and lived authentically can change your whole life for me that question was how can I use what I have what I love and what I know to bless the lives of others the school for good living and this podcast are one answer to that question hi I'm Bryan Miller I know that the world can work for everyone but that it won't until it works for you I've created this to help you make the difference you were born to make it's a series of conversations with thought leaders who are moving humanity forward and in each episode I explore their lives and the work they do I also ask them to break down how they've gotten their books written published and read this podcast is all about exploring the magic and mystery and sometimes the misery of the creative process so if you have a mission a message and a motivation to share it this podcast is for you welcome to the school for good living hello my friends today my guest is dhandapani da n da PA and I Dandapani is a Hindu priest an entrepreneur a former monk of 10 years he graduated what else would you do when you leave a cloistered monastery after a decade with a degree in electrical engineering after his vas expired he moved to New York City he helps people live lives of purpose and joy by empowering them with tools and teachings that have been used by Hindu monks of his tradition for thousands of years no stranger to using technology to spread a message than DePandi's TEDx talk has been viewed more than three million times and get this his gold cast videos have been viewed more than 75 million times in just five months so his message clearly is resonating with some people his key product or message unwavering focus something that I think each of us could use more of it's got a wonderful perspective on why we have such a hard time maintaining concentration how we can do it more fully he talks about how he ended up and why in that monastery giving up essentially everything he owned including relationships chocolate other stuff we talked in this conversation about the difference between mindfulness and meditation and religion and God we talked about the power of commitment we talked about of course the power of concentration he shares a project he has a 300 year plan for a botanical garden and sanctuary he's building in Costa Rica how far out are you thinking he also shares toward the end of our conversation I love his view of writing as a way of moving emotion he also talks about making money doing spiritual work if that's something you do you might find his view on that very useful he talks about how he views promotion has some insights that have worked for him and that might work for you as well Donna pani has done work for many notable clients his work takes him around the world he's worked for Nike these other companies aren't necessarily based here in the United States trivago Commonwealth Bank of Australia fortress Investment Group when I met Donna Pawnee I invited him to come speak to our group of entrepreneurs here in Salt Lake City he did a fantastic job I love a view down to Pawnee shares in this interview of a brother monk a fellow monk of his once said reason should not end where spirituality begins Donna Pawnee welcome to this school for good living thank you thank you for having me on Bryan yeah will you tell me please what is life about it's a very good question I would say there many different answers obviously to it and the answer would really be based on the philosophy that instant scribe T if you subscribe to a particular philosophy you might give one particular type of answer and if you subscribe to another philosophy then you would give a different answer so sa Hindu and a practicing Hindu the philosophy that I subscribed to says that life is about realizing that you are divinity through deep meditation and prayer and spiritual practices and working on being a better version of yourself and improving yourself you go deep within yourself to experience God in the video that's what life is about well then you know obviously someone's subscribing to a different philosophy might say life is about having a great party yeah I know people like that I like to be invited to their parties I just don't subscribe to their philosophy now I remember once a professor of religion presented different models of religions and one of the things that he suggested is that the religions of the desert there were the Western religions judeo-christian tend to believe God is up here and we're down here whereas the eastern and and I remember he distinguished saying there's a difference between the religions of Revelation and the religions of release where the Eastern traditions generally generally speaking believed like you're saying that divinity is within us it's not above us or separate from us it's actually inside us waiting to be expressed or realized and I think that's a really beautiful perspective yeah it's really interesting because you you are right so you call say there is you say the Abrahamic religions of religions of the desert assuming to say I believe that God's above us the interesting thing it's always funny for me people you know we might hear people refer to God the good God above us right you know you see preachers and priests pointing their hand finger to the sky right you see athletes do this too you know they score go bask in the cup of the sky and they thank God so my question is if God is above us you know up there in the heavens and if you happen to be in Oslo Norway and you're looking up in the sky see God's above there you go like okay pretty enough and then what happens if you fly to Christchurch New Zealand and you point above you that's in the complete opposite direction of Oslo Norway so where are you pointing to now because we are another subscriber to the Flat Earth theory you know not sold and that one's I believe we're sitting on a ball flying through space and whichever direction you point is is above so there's 360 degrees to point out so I'm not quite sure where above this it's not like I'm on the second floor of an apartment building in New York and I point above yes God is on the third floor yeah so I'm not showing people I don't show people actually give it much thought when they point up in the sky and say gods above us yeah but I think there's a lot of things in life that are just a lot easier or less painful if we don't think about them too deeply you don't have to think about it just follow along yeah it's like the movies you know if you think about it too much like you know an action movie or something you know and then you just kill a hope it doesn't make sense yeah you see all these plot holes oh you see all the potholes right everything has plot holes - that's watching a movie the other day the other night wait a minute how did they go from this to this don't think about it here to entertain you right I'm really doing this not meant to be so when someone asks you who you are and what you do how do you typically answer that question not very well you're not alone yeah I I say I'm a Hindu preached and entrepreneur and a former monk of 10 years and I now work as an advisor to entrepreneurs and some athletes helping them with their mind and how to leveraged in mind to be better at what they do Wow that I know when you came to Salt Lake and I'm really sorry I missed your your program yeah I was in a meeting I was in a meeting with my family oh yeah I I arranged extended an invitation to everyone listening to attend upon it to come speak to a group of entrepreneurs that I'm a part of here in Salt Lake and the feedback by the way I don't know if it made its way to you but was phenomenal people that I talked to who went there said that big a ton of value and I believe you had some kind of material they were able to take with them and so and and I understand the topic is the unwavering focus so just what you're saying you work with these athletes about us be able to focus to improve performance and clearly it's not just athletes and entrepreneurs who can benefit from this but will you speak about why have you devoted your life or a significant part of your life to this topic why is that important to you yeah I would say that you know when I left them on the street ten years ago and started to teach one of the things I asked myself this won't be the first what would be the starting point where would I start so I asked myself what would what did migrated my guru start when he trained me you know and it was really about understanding the mind and if you don't understand the mind and you don't know how to control it and you don't know how to focus it everything else becomes a challenge after that it becomes a challenge to learn music it was it becomes challenge to learn a sport and be good at it and become an entrepreneur and artists as scientists how can you be good at something if you can't stay with it long enough to learn it practice it and excel at it so so just to jump in there for a moment what I'm hearing you say is that concentration is something that we can develop it's it's not just something some people happen to people don't yeah no it is it's it's something that everybody is taught to do but no one is taught how to do all right I'm sure you were told to concentrate yeah quite quite a lot when I was busy running around like not paying attention basically I was to a million times you know hey dawned upon me focus on those done upon you concentrate on that but no one taught me how to do it so once you learn it and you practice it you can become really good at it and people on good edits because they practice distraction and they don't don't learn concentration and they don't practice it yeah I someone that I really admire once suggested to me that if you look at anyone you consider successful that they almost certainly have the ability to concentrate intensely and for a sustained period and I was like that's really interesting and I started flipping through my memory banks of who do I consider successful and sure enough that's true first and foremost for me I look at my dad who is a very successful entrepreneur and he would do the thing where he would both close his eyes and focus you know at times and he would even shut out distraction by asking people to be quiet or removing himself to another location I know we don't need to isolate ourselves to to learn focus and concentration but what have you discovered I mean like you're saying we told to concentrate but we're not told how and I realize this might not be like a simple answer but how can we do it you have to learn you have to learn from someone who can teach you right and this and you know one of the biggest questions I get asked Brian when I'm on the road traveling and speaking people come up to me and go like it's not one quick thing you can tell me on how I can leave the concentrate yeah not in like an Instagram post can you just tell me in a story basically right tell me in the story 15 seconds you know that's all you get it's like he was going out to be further than saying hey ki T you said one quick thing you can teach me about playing the piano how much is supposed to say you know and what can he say that would so impact your lives that you could play the piano so for me it's like so that's why I have devoted my life at least as part of my time now to create a very detailed online course which is in my app ten chapters worth of lessons that people can go through to learn how to concentrate often and very few people make it to the end because I mean you you have to really want to learn on the concentrate and they take a very slow approach right because in today's well it's all about you give the customer what they want and if something wants that meditates like here let me teach you how to meditate concentration comes before meditation so I even have a meditation cost but you can't even get to the meditation cost until you finish the concentration course so a lot of times you know I get us in podcasts and people go like oh can you give my listeners a quick tip on how to concentrate like no you want to learn you serious about it take the proper approach it's like me going up to a civil engineer and say can you give me a quick tip on how to build a bridge yeah like no you know it takes you four years to get the civil engineer degree took me five years to get an engineering degree there was no quick fix and I think people just become so lazy right brain you know everybody's expecting instantaneous little tips and answers and fixes to the bay thing can solve the problem and I just don't want to be part of that culture you know that that are promising people that if I give you a quick tip this will create a change in your life yeah no I I admire that because I think it's not there's not a shortcut there's not a silver bullet in my experience and I understand you I mean you spent ten years in a monastery yeah all right yeah and I understand that you gave up everything including relationships and things at least put them on hold which to me I don't mean to demean your experience but I mean that sounds a bit like a cult like that's hardcore sounds very hardcore yeah it's a very I mean monasticism is an ancient practice right I mean it's been around for thousands of years they've been moats around just like prostitution yeah so this is like the second oldest profession or the first and then probably came first the chicken with the egg but but you you went to so you grew up in Australia I read it and you went to Hawaii for your ten years in a monastery is that right that's correct here walk us through how like how does that happen what what's the what's the the the storyline that has a young man end up for ten years in a cloistered monastery yeah I met my girl and he his monastery was based in Hawaii on the island of Kauai so when I had wanted to be a month since I was about four or five years old and you know evidence that it was really a quest to find a teacher that could train me in and when I met him I found that he was the right teacher what's his name his name is super erroneous Swami Oh guru datta as we called him affectionately is he still around no he passed away in 2001 yeah three years after I joined a monastery Wow okay so you met him he came to Australia or you went to Hawaii or something he came to Australia I met him we stayed in touch on email quite a bit he invited me to come and stay with him in his monastery for a couple of weeks to see what it was like to get to know him and his nastic order and you know his way of teaching how old were you at the time idol I think I was 22 what did you family think I think they kind of always knew the back of the head that's like you know they probably didn't want to say anything you know it's like you know your son's gay but you don't want to say it until he comes out and say this to you but there's something I think you know yeah we come out of the closet and tell you the mug but they were they were good at it they were support they were fine yeah I mean they never said to me go and be along but they never said don't go either it's hard right it's hard as a parent to let your child go yeah that's the one that you drive that gets up in the canyon and then when you go in I think there's a little there's a like I want to say a model of the planets in crystals I don't yeah yeah yeah yeah in the temple yeah in the temple I was like yeah that's really interesting yes that's really cool it's that about so for anyone listening if you and maybe you can describe what is that thing what is the temple and then what is the model inside it yes haven't described that but just to finish your earlier question so that you can stay for concern I would expect nothing less oh yeah because you know I find in conversations people go from one topic to another to another to another and within the space of five minutes you've gone to 50 different topics none of which I've ever come full circle to completion sure and then you go like what was the point of that yeah so this is my job right it's it's what I did yep you're the guest I'm just trying to honor your question and answer it yeah thank you going to the to the next one so the reasons for going to the monastry was really about enlightenment right it was this philosophy I subscribe said that divinity is within us I want the experience that I've made the assumption that the monastic path was the most efficient way to enlightenment not the only way the most efficient way right where you could go cloister yourself and put your time in in a place where it's built for that kind of experience or on learning at least to have that experience so that was the main impetus for going there and then obviously the teacher right having the right teacher is so critical and crucial and then many spiritual teachers out there when I found my teacher or when we met I found each other I just found that he was the right person to train me I felt that he had all the characteristics of a teacher that I wanted to be a student and like you said you know I renounced everything right relationships family friends chocolate ice cream you know going to the beach to give up and if I was going to give up my life to go and be in a monastery then I wanted to be in a monastery where with a teacher that I thought would need to give my life to you what were some of those qualities that were that powerful for you to be willing to do that I would say he was practical first of all practical and outline very clear steps to a clearly defined goal and I think in a lot of times in spirituality that does not happen so I just finished five years of engineering school all right and I graduated with a degree in electrical engineering in and one of the big things about engineering school is processes that's all Engineering is about the steps leading to a goal you have a goal and then you figure out the steps to get that you solve the problems along the way to get to the goal nobody argued with that in engineering school you never approach a problem without a process so but then when you take spiritual life a spirituality there's no goal-setting there's no steps just threw out the window throw everything out the window the universe will guide me you know there will be a sign a mysterious thing will come in my way and yes you know that everything life yes has steps putting on shoes you put your socks you put your shoes on you tie your shoelaces three steps you never mixed it up all right taking a shower has steps Thank You Claude self get you know check the water temperature you get wet you never mix those steps up you know walk in the shower with your clothes and soap and their clothes take your clothes off the new clothes on wipe yourself off then leave no right you follow the steps to get to go so why spirituality shouldn't happen why shouldn't spirituality have that and and he had that about him right he he was very simple he was practical and Cole orientated and I think one of the biggest things that I also loved about him was that he placed the entire burden of responsibility on me and that's another thing that I find that a lot of spiritual teachers don't do as they promised his students but they able to deliver something and he was not I'll show you the tool to show you the steps good luck yeah if you get stuck ask me but I'm not going to do anything for you and I love that right yeah that's it's powerful and as I hear you describe it it's I could I mean I'm thinking if you had asked me describe all the qualities of a great coach they're those same things right because as soon as you lean on the coach then you can't be great yourself alright you can't be a good student you wanna be a good teacher yeah you know okay so then when you were there for 10 years how did you know it was how did you know you were done I didn't my goal was to stay for life and after she died three years after I joined the monastery he died and you know I felt that was a big shift in the monastery which was natural because he was such a you know he was the founder such you know it was such a big partner he was all of our life of the monks over there and I stayed for several years and I felt we were quite aligned anymore and so I decided to leave my vows expired and I I love so so that was I was there for ten years and then I left it was a little over ten years ago Wow yeah and about and around crystals yes yes exactly they don't forget yeah please I'm I've wondered that literally for years yes I understand there's this whole you know obviously this cosmology in Hinduism every religious tradition or philosophy has its own worldview and and I I know there's something greater I mean I think we all know if we just take a moment and look above us or outside our window and yet one thing that my experiences were so focused on you know our mediate experience or what we have to do today that we don't think about the vastness of the universe in space or time and I was really impressed by there it was and my memory is it was right in the middle of this temple yeah it wasn't every day it's rearranged if the planets are living so they one of the monks move those round balls to different quadrants yeah because they're they are actually spheres that yeah they are different sizes which represent proportionately the size of the planets right right and and what what's that about yes so in Hindus only believed in astrology and and that astrology is thousands of years old now that's not something I know very much about or even I'm an expert at I never quite grew up believing or practicing it do I believe in astrology and now I would say I believe it's true but I don't it's not something I consult to guide my life right why do I believe there is validity in astrology is because the moon affects the ocean right well that's we most people would say yes to that and how many percent of our body is water 70 roughly roughly white around there a little bit more so why wouldn't it affect us yeah I think of what Italy it would make sense right yeah and your doctors would tell you full moons you get lots more crazies coming to the hospital lots more accidents you know so the way I look at a serology it's more like a weather right so if I then it goes sailing I would want to see if there was good wind blowing you know I don't know anything about sailing good tides or whatever right the waters calm or whatever is needed for sailing and if all the conditions are right I'd have a good sailing day if the conditions were not right I could still go sailing but it would be much harder to go about things so in Hinduism people consult astrology see if the timing now is the best time to get something done or should I just wait another week and do it then you could probably get things done at both times one just requires a lot more effort and another time just things go smoothly and you've probably experienced in your life as well where some days things it's just you know it's just happening yeah in a day you get 20 things down everything is flowing smoothly for like four or five days you go like this is amazing it's a cake I'm just getting things done and then the next week it's like hey crunch you know you try to get one thing done and it's just everything is not going the way you want it this is Evan so by consulting astrology and seeing how it refers to your own personal astrology people have figured out the science of weather forecasting so this week yeah yeah I think that's really interesting and and one of the things that I think about what that is you know is it is it true I don't know is it possibly true sure and the history of as far as I understand it of the Western rational scientific tradition is the history of being wrong you know the history of moving from ignorance to knowledge and in some cases wisdom but I think I think it's really really fascinating so okay well thank you for satisfying my curiosity what else does left to talk about in this part of the interview about your your work your life I mean I mean another so much more what's the other big thing you know but I'm currently working on besides the causes and you know sharing people content through that is the project that I have in Costa Rica oh yes I'm so glad you mentioned this because I understand you're building a sanctuary and Botanical Garden with your wife yeah so tell me about that yeah so we have 33 acres of land well right on the river and maybe about seven eight minutes from the beach and we're creating a botanical garden and a spiritual signatory so we we have Gardens we've already planted maybe about 2,500 trees and plants different types from medicinal to flowering to fir trees we have about 50 different types of fruit trees not just fruit trees but different types of fruit trees that we've put in the ground and the gardens of broken into seven smaller Gardens each representing a different area of the mind so one thing about goddesses you know at the friend of mine who's a botanist shared this with me he said that Botanical Gardens the second most visited places in the world after theme parks know you if you knew that even more than museums apparently so I love going to pudendal Gardens what missing guns but you know I and I've been to so many around the world right because of something I'm passionate about you go to pretend a gun you see trees you see plants you enjoy them but most people don't understand trees and plants so they just you know it's flowering great if not it does have a nice experience in nature and they come home what we're trying to do is that whenever whenever a person goes through each of those seven Gardens they're learning Oh a tool that they can then take home and apply in their life so Joe comes and Joe's not even religious maybe Joe's an atheist you know but he just happens to be in town hears about the garden goes to check it out he can as he goes to each garden he can learn a tool that can help him with his mind how to work with the subconscious how to give her the pass unresolved emotions how to reprogram two subconscious how to concentrate how to develop willpower so it's not only just a garden to display nature and by the garden tools or educate people and power people with simple tools that they can take back and apply in their life and create change that sounds really beautiful on multiple levels yeah and then for people that are more serious in a real offer retreats that really want to do the work and transform themselves that's great so what do what will people need to do to make a reservation there you know we probably won't be open for another three years or so I would say you know two three years before we start running retreats and at the start it will probably just be invite-only just so that we can test the waters yeah run it see how it's going and then I would say you know they would probably be qualifications we haven't really thought it out thoroughly yet but I would say definitely people would have to finish the unwavering focus cause on the out yeah what because that's the foundational things that I teach right and if you can't get the foundation then and I need to know you're committed as well I want to waste time with people that are like committed yeah what are you calling the place in Costa Rica it's called siva ashram SIV a and ii lives ashram Sivas ancient Sanskrit word for God it literally means the auspicious one and not meaning God above different the tuber than this yeah and in everything right in the trees the stones in everything that's Shiva and I from the simplest way you could say it's a spiritual sanctuary hmm I love that well let me let me go back in to the to the app as well because I heard you say that there's the meditation one but before that is the concentration of course and what will you tell us what are they called and then how can people find them or sign up for them yeah for sure the the the cost and focus is called unwavering focus and the cost of meditation is called introduction to meditation and the easiest way to find them is to go on the App Store or the Play Store if your Android user and just search for dhandapani my name is DMD AAP and i and the app will come up and you can download the app for free the courses you would need to buy but there's also tons of free content on the app top video charts audio talks daily quotes a general morning and evening general to help you with developing humility selfless service and gratitude you know and he fundamental qualities I might sound like a judgmental jerk here but I sometimes think that the people who might benefit most from that have no interest in signing up you know probably yeah but you know I set it up that way so that people can really benefit the most rather than using technology to before I had the app I had the Kostis on a wordpress site and people would have to download PDF worksheets check off exercises they're doing under work she'd evaluate themselves and now we've just digitized that and so people could that's actually even a graph it's a section where you can monitor your progress within the app that shows you how well you're developing your concentration how well you're developing your own power over a few weeks a few months and people know how to read chants if it's going up it's good if it's going down not so good yeah sure well and let me ask you this too I know that in obviously so in this conversation we've talked about God we've talked about spirituality and as we both know there are teachers of mindfulness or meditation that they don't make any mention there's for them no connection between meditation and and God or even spirituality and so forth and so one of the things that I tend to try to be conscious of when I talk about this is for people that might be turned off by a spiritual aspect of it but you know to me that's that's a shame that they might walk away from cultivating a mindfulness practice or meditation practice if they if they're turned off by that what they might perceive as even a religious component how do you think about that if you do yeah no I do that's a really great question and no one's asked me that and I'm so happy that you've asked me that because I'd love to share what I think about this yes please I think God has a bad reputation and people are so afraid to use the word God that almost everybody in their dog now uses the word universe if you've listened to people talk and people will say like well the universe will show me the way and you know well if I'm just gonna let the universe work through me you know the universe will guide me I actually said to somebody once when they said that I said hang on a second look I was actually born in Malaysia and I spend my early childhood in a move to Australia so even though I speak English it's not I'm not very strong in English so help me understand some English words that I may not be clear about the word universe when I look in Webster's dictionary or Oxford Dictionary I think it defines it as the entire solar system galaxies and planets of you know black holes that are all around us so when you're saying the universe will die are you saying that Pluto meets with Saturn and Uranus to talk about your life and where it's going I somehow doubt that yeah so why don't you just use the word God why are you so afraid to use the word God it's people afraid to tie the meditation practices in mindfulness practice of whatever it is they're doing to any kind of religion they want to be free of religion they want to be independent which then leads them to be extremely undisciplined and uncommitted and as my Brewer would say they're committed to being not committed and therefore never make any progress or very little progress now you have to find a path you have to find a philosophy you have to commit you talked earlier about that man that told you you know most successful people in the world are highly concentrated yeah I'll add to what he said and I said the most successful people in the world are committed to that path yeah get committed to going down that path and they will not get off the path and that's why they are where they are and if you want to make progress in your spiritual path in your spiritual life you have to commit to the path but you have the path it's only defined by a goal and that goal is defined by the philosophy subscribes you and I think people are so afraid to associate themselves with the religion associate themselves with God so they don't use the G word I mean look at you know a Yoga Journal for example right they've never used the H word that doesn't surprise me Hindu where does yoga come from you know there's another Buddhist practice know that that does surprise me for one moment I thought you were referring to the H word as hell like Hindu would write the word Hindu yeah that does surprise me yo there's not a Buddhist practice yoga is not a Christian practice yoga is not a Islamic practice or Judy practice it's a Hindu practice right but yet you go to every yoga studio across the country homey Yoga says oh it's a Hindu practice no they go like you know yoga's for everyone that's just it is just yoga like what it's like saying the Bible is not Christian or the Quran is not Islam I mean like come on give me a break what's why you why is it so hard to give credit where credit is due if it came from there say it came from that so the way I understand that like I don't dispute that at all that yoga originated from the Hindu tradition yet my view of it today at least the way I understand it today is that people who practice yoga aren't necessarily practicing Hinduism is that I mean how do you see that no they're not practicing Hinduism but they can acknowledge that yoga comes from Hinduism sure yeah yeah and and I think that's important to distinguish because I do think that so many people I mean I actually happen to think even though this is a generalization that everyone could benefit from the practice of yoga as far as I understand it and yet I hear from time to time stories of you know maybe Yoga is being introduced in a school but parents will say I don't want my kid learning yoga their Christian condition and their right and their right so you think kids who a Christian shouldn't learn yoga is that what you're saying absolutely not interesting now you should ask me why yes honey why is that why oh thank you I thought universe so I was doing a I want to yeah I do a retreat and haven't done one in the last couple years but I take a group of people that have to apply in for this retreat and I take you know anywhere from 20 to 30 people and we go for a 1012 day I call them spiritual adventures to Asia we spent classes every day we go out we have fun we have a cultural experience a spiritual Jimmy and once there was this lady from the middle of America and she applied for the trip and we have a little phone interview because I want to know who's coming with me and she told me she was a Christian I said that's fine I said we're for all kinds of people everything's coming on my trip - no problem with that she said she's a practicing Christian and we started talk about the philosophy and stuff and then I said do you believe that God's above you or God is inside of you in every way I suppose no I'm a Christian I believe God's above us God's in heaven God's not in everything everyone than me and then then I said to her you know and you come on my trip you're going to be learning Hindu philosophy I'm a Hindu priest even you don't go with the Hindu priests to live Christian philosophy right you can lend him the philosophy you can learn about meditation you're gonna learn about concentration you can learn about all these things and all of these things are going to help you to experience God inside of yourself you know but this is something you don't believe and she said to me you know down the Ponte I've been doing yoga the last six months and at the end of the yoga and yoga lay down on my back and I close my eyes and you know I do that shahboz other thing or whatever they say and I feel this something inside of me deeper and I said you understand that's taking you away from your Christian beliefs right I said if you want to be a good Christian and you want to follow your Christian philosophy then you have to understand that gods in heaven and you refuse to accept the gods and everything then you shouldn't do a practice that will lead you to that I mean it's just not logical it makes sense if I fully believe that if I go to enable hood in New York City where I live where this unsavory people that do bad things if I hang out with them long enough I'll do bad things too so should I go hang out with them when in my golden life is not to do that thing I don't think so yeah so that's why it you know Brian I think what people need to do is they need to become crystal clear what their philosophy they subscribe to and that's right go back to the very first question you asked me what is life about right and my answer was well depends what philosophy is subscribe to so when you subscribe to the philosophy and a crystal clear what the philosophy is the philosophy defines the goal the goal defines the path and the path defines the practice four steps philosophy goal path and practice when I practice this I can stay on the path to get to this goal which has been defined by that philosophy but you don't want to practice something that puts you on a path to get you to a goal that you don't want to get to you don't want to be practicing something 20 years later find out God's inside of you and go like crap that's not what I wanted I wanted to go to heaven right you know it makes I mean it makes perfect sense what you're saying you think they shouldn't practice I'm just trying to help them like I'm saying I'm telling this lady that if you stay on this path you're not gonna find God and haven't you gonna find God inside of you do you really want that that's basically what I asked them and she said no then I said stop doing it then yeah well and and again I mean I'm I'm I'm really fascinated by the paradoxes and contradictions that every one of us seems to live with or at least the people I know you know that we're not aware of and the first thing and this is its own whole conversation I acknowledge but I wonder you know how many of these are we just have this innate sense of yes I believe this and I'm gonna keep moving the direction that feels intuitively right you know and then we come to a point where maybe that is no longer tenable and we have a breakdown or you know we we make some major life evolution but what this lady's sound says she what she was saying sounds very normal to me and what I wonder is did she end up going on the spiritual adventure and if so how did it turn out no she did not I totally she shouldn't come because I I don't want to be involved in taking her away from her faith and her beliefs sheeters religiously to the church she believes in what her Frese tells her she's so staunch Christian why would I go and pull take her away from something she wholeheartedly believed in and it would not be right of me as a Hindu one of I would say our goals as a Hindu one of the practices were encouraged to do is to support people in their faith we don't proselytize it's not part of Hinduism so if someone said Mormon we tell them to be a great moment and help them to be a better moment so it's a Christian to help them to be a better Christian there's another job to stray them away from their path if they're keen to learn about Hinduism happy to share that's not my goal to go and fish them out of one path and put them on another path yeah I really like that I appreciate that and also the point you just made just now was that I think there's two parts right people are born they grew up in a particular faith and not everybody does but some people do and when they're growing up in that faith with their parents or relatives around them the church or temple or synagogue could be indoctrinating them with certain principles and philosophies that they need to believe you know five six seven years old gods in heaven this is right this is wrong you're going to hell you're not going to hell right and and that's what's put in your head for the 10-15 years of your life then you start to become more independent as a teenager you go to university you start thinking more for yourself a lot of these people have banned and the religion then they go like you know go out party do things and then at some point they want to find some kind of stabilization so they go to a yoga class they go feels this feels good I like a Zen Buddhist to that Hindu whatever things going on here then they started doing that and then as soon as they start to get deeper into that the first thing that comes up is all the programming that went into the subconscious mind when they were a kid now this just great sense of guilt and contradicting information oh one saying it should be this way and then and what they currently experience which is telling them something completely different like that lady was experiencing something inside of her that felt deeper and spiritual right which is why by the way and why even though I appreciate your perspective of not wanting to you know be the reason or the cause of her straying from her committed path is ultimately you know my view is that experience there's no teacher like experienced right and so being one who is hearing what she's saying when she's inquiring about signing up for this spiritual adventure and you know you're checking in with her which i think is totally understandable of why do you want to come and here's what to expect and all that but and then allowing her to gain whatever experience she gains and I suppose all normally it's a choice for you as the facilitator and her as the participant but to me that that's the thing is like man some roads we just we won't gain the experience until we go to Adam you know yeah but here's the thing though right I mean that person needs to have enough of that experience over and over again till they become really strong in their belief that the experience they've been having inside of them Israel okay said the initial stages if I took her on the trip she'd be fine the first few days after about five or six days she'll turn around and attack me yeah because I'm threatening threatening everything she knows you know like yeah so that's why a wise teach and I'm not saying why I'm a wise teacher would not do that let her have that experience and have her build that experience over maybe that makes 15 20 years and at one point she'll go like you know what I totally believe God's inside of me and then she's truly ready to come yeah she'll be back we'll see we'll see okay yeah so with your permission let's transition to the enlightening lightning round okay sure okay so a series of 10 questions I will ask them as briefly as possible and for the most part stay out of the way you're welcome to answer as long as you want but with that can I swipe left or right yes okay first question is a sentence completion please complete the following sentence with something other than a box of chocolates life is like a a great tool to improve yourself okay number two I'm you know shamelessly borrow Peter Thiel's question what significant truth do you believe that most people disagree with you on that concentration is the fundamental first step to its any sort of change okay number three if you were required every day for the rest of your life to wear a t-shirt with a slogan on it or phrase or saying or quote or equip what would the shirt say what my guru often said to the most life is meant to be lived joyously mmm I like that okay number four what book have you gifted or recommended most often autobiography of a yogi' by Paramahansa Yogananda that's the book that encouraged me to start meditating every single day and that's the teacher who talked about concentration being essential component of every successful person yeah he's he's the real deal if you want a book that will change your life and put you in the spiritual path read it yeah I finished that book in kawaii by the way you on the beach in Kauai yeah on the 31st of December probably six seven years ago that's amazing yeah what a special book huh yeah really special and then I did his whole I'm still doing actually his horses by mail yeah love that and this this bracelet right here is beads from that self-realization fellowship yeah in San Diego yeah that's right yeah yeah so tell me I'll just probe on this question just for a moment when you mentioned autobiography of a yogi' I'm sometimes surprised both how many people know the book and what a profound effect it has had on certain people and then I'm also sometimes surprised how many people have never heard of the book so would you be when they did you spend a moment like explaining why is that the book that you have gifted a recommended most often well I think it's also another spiritual teacher that's extremely practical if you're doing the lessons you see it's it's not a wishy-washy close your eyes hold your hands up and feel the power the universe coming into your kind of thing you know he has a very structured approach to things and he's very practical so I feel and another reason I'd give gift of that book to a lot of people especially people who come from what did you call it the desert religious yeah you know religious of the desert yeah or or the religions of Revelation okay there's a loaded to the religions of release okay okay relative religion self revelation it's a lot of those people from the religions of Revelations who are kind of looking within themselves that's a nice bridge you know because parents are gonna talks about Hinduism and then he talks about Christianity a lot obviously but he looks at Christianity very differently than most Christians look at Christianity right he looks at it a very much more metaphysical mystical way and finds a harmony between those so for the people that are not ready to give up the Abrahamic religions and move to an Eastern religion this is kind of a happy marriage of both and part of what I love about his work by the way is and I read them with my wife and she's a gardener oh she's a master gardener and I love language so I love that Yogananda is a poet and and then she loves that he has all these references to flowers and plants and Gardens it's really neat so that's possible yeah okay getting us back on track here so question number five you travel a lot and you've held a lot what's one travel hack meaning something you do or something you take with you when you travel to make your travel less painful or more enjoyable on the plane all I was on the road I'd love to hear both actually and maybe there's things in booking like I'd never thought of this until I guess said I always make sure to reserve a hotel room away from the elevator and you know stuff like that so maybe there's something that you do in the planning and the booking maybe there's something on the airplane I would say for me the biggest thing is jet lag right so I I mean my travels are not domestic so I mean they're a little bit domestic but I fly to Europe Africa Middle East Australia Asia a lot so these are long-haul travels and for me is where I land I get into the timezone right away so if I land in Sydney at 1:00 p.m. I am nakid absolutely wasted tired I'll stay awake till 9:00 p.m. 9:30 before I go to sleep and if that requires me walking for five hours or whatever also to do whatever it takes and then I'll get into rhythms so I actually don't really suffer from jetlag I I can come home from Asia anywhere and turn around within 24 hours and be back in the time zone yeah and and that that's helped me so much based on you know how much I travel now so so get into the time zone basically anything else that you found to be useful any any products or like items that you take with you they that you wouldn't want to travel without no not not really I actually you know the one thing that I do is I have a whole routine right so when I get on the plane I I have things in little bags you know like cables whatever I need if I'm going to be working everything is in one bag sort of pulling out 20 things from the bag that I need I just pull out that one bag and it's got a USB cable it's got a power cable for my computer my laptop headphones if I need whatever everything is compartmentalize so and you know if I'm doing long haul travel you know usually fly business law so you know it's I I fly one airline you which is usually emirates i know what seat number i'm picking you know like what row let's see and i always get that road that seat because there's a reason for that there's two compartments on the side which allows you to put all my stuff away you know on a 15-hour flight that's super helpful have routine out of a change of clothes so yeah for those long-haul flights i plan out everything like what time I actually get on the plane is it a night flight a morning flight you know when I'm going to sleep on the plane how long will I sleep on the plane so that when I land I'm kind of getting into the time zone another that how much I tend to eat all the time on the plane I see this it's crazy every time they come around with food they say yes I'm like you don't have to say yes yeah it's like being in a casino there you don't know what time of day it is and they just keep serving yeah they keep saying you feel like every for us and I'm looking at people you know what you don't want have to say yes you can say no you know and for me I might have one meal maybe in a 14-hour flight and the snack or something but I don't you don't need to eat three meals you know one thing that and I'm curious if you do this when I heard you talk about your back because I do something similar with I actually have a fanny pack and then I have all my cables and the pen and stuff but also one thing I've just added yeah it's camo it's a camel one oh I love it totally cool yeah and and one thing I just added my wife actually recommended this do you do the disinfectant wipes and you actually do the tray and the screen and my wife yeah I started and I didn't get sick in 2019 that's awesome yeah like that's oh that's amazing so yeah no that's worth it I hate getting sick man flees the list I don't know what I'm gonna plead ignorance on that one what is the man flu just okay all right we're halfway through the enlightening landing round number six what's one thing you've started or stopped doing in order to live or age well innovation yeah so just in life I would say anything that was not that was consciously like oh my goodness I'm getting older you know what can I do to either slow or maybe even reverse that but I would say it's open to you any all-time oh that's a really tough one huh because I think a lot of what my training was and my practice was I think helps with that I I would say the biggest thing is learning to control awareness in the minds and I talk to people about how the mind and awareness are two different things the mind doesn't move but awareness moves within the mind and the more you can control that awareness moving in the mind you can move you can control where your energy is going in your life because my guru used to say we're where a mass goes energy flows and by controlling your awareness in your mind you start to control how much you worry how much you fear heart anxiety you have how much stress you have and and I think that helps you not hate so much I think more than even the food you eat you know I think so much of it I think everything starts in the mind faith and not saying the body is not important the food you eat is not important but young mind can literally wreck your body and wreck it wreck you so by the wall learning to control them mine oh you know the less you stress and worry and fear and and I anxious about yeah that makes sense number seven and I love this with your very multicultural and your global experience what's one thing you wish every American knew that there's a world outside America I'll give you an example right here's a classic example so I I was born in Malaysia I spent the early childhood I moved to Australia I'm an Australian citizen and we've lived there for a while moved to Hawaii lived in Hawaii for ten years now lived in New York for a little over ten years and then a couple of years we were moving to Costa Rica so I Phaneuf I can said moved around a little bit right and spend enough time places I didn't know much about baseball till I came to America and I still don't know much about baseball but you know you hear about it when the Red Sox one of those teams who win the baseball tournament in America Major League Baseball that's right yeah the World Series when they win the World Series in Major League Baseball that's right yes it's called a World Series and the Red Sox are now known as the world champions do you see a flaw in that statement yeah that they're based here I mean you have the Toronto Blue Jays but other than that it's an American it's basically an American League so what's the hall that they're the world champions when they're only on the continent of North America yeah I didn't see him playing the Hanshin Tigers in Tokyo or the Ugandan Panthers yeah I don't think they were in the tournament from Uganda have you seen the World Cup soccer world cup before yes it takes about 2 and 1/2 years for all the countries around the world to qualify to make the last 32 right so all the countries will play each other based on you know the CONCACAF regional that's the Europe region Africa Asia they play each other and then from each of those region a few teams make the final 32 which then comes which is never known as the World Cup and that lasts 30 days roughly and then out of those 32 teams one team becomes the world champion so two and a half years where everybody all around the world plays each other then it's fair to say you're the world champion how can you call yourself the world champions when you play in your own country there's that logic again yeah yeah yeah no it's it's it's really logical I mean little side note here since we talked so much about spirituality and religion there was a there's a monk that lived in the monastery and he was a pretty good friend of mine so to speak we were brother monk so many years and he had a beautiful saying he said reason should not end when West fortuity begins hmm I like that and I love that right because a lot of times people abandon reason in the spiritual path or in religion and why is it because in everything in life that you do you're not unreasonable you'd never stand in front of a moving train right you wouldn't drink dirty water off the street but then when it comes to spirituality in real religion it seems like people would just abandon reason yeah well then they defer to Authority yeah well some blind belief you know someone to come up and say something the most ridiculous thing to you and you go like yep I agree like I had a I had a Christian once say to me of a coffee table then I'm going to hell and I said okay I think I knew that already but I see you're gonna go to hell and you're going to be eaten by worms for the rest of eternity and I looked at him and I said that's not possible and he said yes it is I said I can tell you for a fact that's not possible that's not gonna happen and he goes oh yes it is and then he leaned up and he looked at me and says do you know he asked me do you know how long a tendency is and then I looked at him and I said let me tell you why that's not possible and I were wearing long sleeves and I rolled up my sleeves and I said look at me I'm a skinny brown guy if you put two maggots of me they'll be done with my body in about a couple years right it's not gonna take an eternity to eat me so when you say I'm gonna be eaten by worms for eternity so are you saying that my body is regenerating flesh as the worms are eating there's no reason here if you said well my gonna eat me for ten years - and down to my bones I go like okay that might happen does it make sense what I'm trying to say just it so it's amazing how I'm not saying that that could have happened right don't get me wrong it's possibility but what's not a possibility is I'm going to be eaten for eternity because it's some point they're gonna run out of flesh so I think that's where you know and so much of spirituality and religion people just abandon reason and start talking in terms in ways that just don't make sense and you know yeah I think you're right okay question eight okay number eight what's the most important or useful relationship advice you have ever heard and successfully applied yes honey happy wife happy life I was joking even though I do use that one from time to time I would say it's from my group and my good obviously I wasn't a month man but he would say this to other couples he would say and resolve your differences before you go to bed at night you know so you know whenever my wife and I have a misunderstanding arguing will be we resolve it before we go to bed at night all right thank you and then number nine is about money aside from compound interest what's the most important or most useful thing you've ever learned about money or what's something you're always sure to do with it or to never do with it Oh a few questions in that I I would like to say I would never waste a money sometimes I do spend it and then I think maybe that was not a good spend but it was never done with the intention to waste it you know we'll go to town we go $1,000 and like cocaine and hope this is something yeah we established early that you're not on the hedonistic life Lhasa P yes so that's not gonna happen I'm so wasting money second thing you know one of my mentors currently a wonderful man named Steve Hall was a dear friend a mentor of mine he taught me that profit is for the purpose of impact and I really love that phrase you know profit is for the purpose of impact and if you quote me don't say that I said that he said it people always take things that my guru say and assign it to me and I'm like I didn't say that yeah yeah I love that view and and I and I read something and maybe this is in line with it as well about the path that you're following of what in in the Hindu tradition is known as a householder yeah is to earn a profit is to earn money in so that you can use that in service to others is that will you speak a little about that yeah so the four goals on the householder path is love wealth righteous action and enlightenment so one of the goals is to make as much money as possible and the reason being is when you have well so you can look after your family make sure you have food housing clothing you know and once that instinctive need is taken care of right and you know there's an even coming for the next few months then your mind is at ease your body's at ease and you can actually go within you it's when you don't have that financial security that you're always thinking how am I going to look out to myself how am I going to feed myself and it's very hard to go with and be reflective and be meditating so and once you have enough money to look after your family and your loved ones then all that excess money some of it can be spent for enjoying life you know going to movie or going on a nice holiday there's nothing wrong with those things so buying a nice TV if you wanted to right and and then use the rest of the money to create impact around the world you know for us you know for my wife and I siva ashram in costa rica is is where we're putting our money and with the purpose of creating an impact in the world and we have a 300 year plan for that project and the idea is that it lives well beyond us and continues to impact humanity long after were dead and we're using our financial resources to create this place that will continue to perpetually impact people's lives I think that is so cool well I I'll ask this too because I'm curious well and I'll preface it by saying I remember learning and I don't know that this is true but I did read his biography and I remember learning that Henry Ford believed in reincarnation and one of the things that I wondered when I read that was whether or not part of his if that's true that he believed that was whether that influenced the work he did not only to enrich himself or his family or whatever and I'm only speculating in his motives but part of what I wondered is if he ever had the notion that I'm gonna come back somewhere sometime and I want to build technology that I will benefit from in my subsequent lives to continue growing and evolving as a being and I wonder when I hear you say you have a 300 year plan is any part of that have to do with coming back perhaps or is it just because you're concerned with you know service in the long term or something else yeah I a hundred percent believe in reincarnation but the project is not about me coming back and you know benefiting and go like ah thank God I don't have to build this now that's all yeah thank goodness I I planted that mango tree I did my name my initials on that ya know the idea is really for impact right even though I believe in your incarnation it's really about impact and the question you know it's not about creating a legacy and all the times you know and spend time with entrepreneurs a lot of time entrepreneurs will say like all what's your legacy and and for me I feel like if I see it's my legacy then it involves me it's something I want to leave behind the question better to ask is how can I serve right when I say how can I serve then it has nothing to do with me right it's about me trying to create a difference on this planet to impact humanity to impact environment whereas if it's a legacy then you can say this is Brian Miller's legacy this is what he wanted to do no no and there's do you see the distinction between both of their going yeah yeah so it's not a legacy it's it's about service right yeah and that's really what the project is it's about awesome all right and final question this question is if people want to learn more from you or connect with you what would you have them do I would say the best thing to do right now since we launched the app three months ago is to download the app it's again like I said you can get it from the Play Store and the App Store just says for dhandapani most people can't spell down the bunnies so you might want to put in your description or let alone even say the name yeah definitely yeah so download the app and then you know there's access to a lot of free content like I said and then they can obviously buy a horse I mean you can obviously go on the web and search around and find free content but that's a little bit of the waste of time and if your release there is no studying then I would say do my unwavering focus cause it's only 99 dollars it's hardly anything I mean you know people spend that on a dinner sometimes and you have lifetime access to it and it's you know I put my heart and soul into creating that and I would say that would be the most important thing I can teach you from monastry isn't that cause that's fantastic and I heard you say it might be a waste of time to look around online for free content however you might be being humble because I know your TED talk is great it's been viewed more than three million times yeah and the videos that have been released through goal cast have been viewed my understanding is like seventy five million times you know videos so obviously what what you have to say is being received well by people really resonating and so people might also get a little taste of a little more in addition to listen to this interview by looking at some of that but then also of course by downloading the apps that you've mentioned yeah and a lot of the app also connects to a lot of the videos on YouTube so we've actually pulled our videos into YouTube from YouTube onto the app so it's it's all in one place rather than having to go troll around YouTube and that's great to get distracted by the five minutes naked Indonesia in practice distraction right thanks Ali yeah all right okay so the final part before we transition from the enlightening lighting around I know we have just a few minutes left but I did go online on kiva.org and I made a loan to a woman who is based in I believe this woman is in Kazakhstan I'm just gonna double check but she is an entrepreneur she is in Kazakhstan her name is nurse Amal she's 39 years old she's married she's going to use this money to buy cattle to increase her family's income from cattle breeding so I just wanted to thank you for giving me a reason to make that loan on your behalf is that what you do with abacus yeah so for each guest I make a micro loan in their honour awesome thank you that's very sweet yeah okay so congratulations you survived the enlightening lightning round awesome I did badly and maybe just take a few minutes I'd love to continue just a little bit the topic on my and spirituality sure yeah just because I think you know so many people have a weird relationship with money for sure and especially if they feel like the spiritual path and money is a bad thing filthy lucre right yeah I do think there's that idea of what do they say that money is the root of all evil it's common saying and Western tradition but I've also heard it said that it's the love of money that's the root of all evil not money money is just a tool it's like electricity or fire and and also there's nothing wrong with loving money right I mean it's how you spend it isn't it and what you use it for I mean you use it to buy arms to kill people then that's one thing but what if you love making money and you love taking that money and helping humanity giving a loan to a woman in Kazakhstan so that she can buy cattle is that love for money then bad I don't think so no right and somehow people think that buying material things for yourself it's also unspiritual which is a really weird thing I mean yeah if you're buying 100 Ferraris maybe it's a little bit much you work hard and you want to buy one Ferrari go ahead why shouldn't you have a nice material possession does it make you less spiritual I think it will have such a warped perspective on on money and spirituality yeah and because their relationship with money is just so unclear I think when when more clarity can reached be reached on it everything in this world all the good things of this was done using money orphanages are fed people are housed looked after Aid is given there was no money none of these things could be done illusions are being cleaned up yeah and I mean just on the other side of that as well I think there's a lot of I mean I think a lot of what we've got ourselves into as a species is also from following a capitalist credo of maximize shareholder value the exploitation of resources and people at all costs you know so clearly there's two sides you know to to money to the to everything but so what do you say because this is something I deal with in the the coach training program I offer which is look you can have all the coaching skills in the world but if you are not willing I mean unless you want to walk a path might like a renunciant or you want to do this pro bono for your whole life which some people do right yeah that at some point having these conversations with people about who you are what's your professional identity what's the value you offer who do you serve how do you charge how much do you charge do you package or do I already rate this kind of thing so this all just kind of a setup to say I've definitely seen this in the work I do training coaches of helping them get past money blocks that they have but what have you found that is helpful in helping people get past their reluctance to accept money for the service they offer others yeah and I think the way to look at it you know it's something that my wife said to me very early on you know when I'm after I left him on this tree and you know I got to know her and I was just starting what I was doing she one thing she said to me is to look at the money the same way you look at energy you know it's just an exchange right and in the old days some of the office servers and the other person might give them a bag of rice which would feed their family right now give you a cattle and you give me 20 bags of rice or whatever maybe and and it's just an exchange of energy it's just a trade it's not a bad thing but I think the first step even getting this that you know people have this block about accepting money or how much money for their services because they feel that money is it's a bad thing they're not fully 100% comfortable with it I don't look at money as a bad thing I love making money I love using the money to make a difference in the world you know and I love learning money and I've no wrong housing people what I feel I need to be paid yeah but I hope but I don't look at it as a bad thing right every kid is a beautiful thing the more money I make the more I impact humanity in the environment yeah and and then the more you're able to again so thanks a virtuous cycle yep exactly I love that in and I have this thing to where I love selling things I just love it yeah I have to come from you well I mean I think it starts and and although I haven't heard you say this explicitly I think what you're saying is in line with this is that when you view what you do as a service you know when you really when you really stand behind it now I wouldn't feel good I wouldn't love selling something that you made people sick or that ultimately contributed to their unhappiness or you know they're well they're adverse well-being but when I believe in it and it's then I will I especially love it and especially if you know what you're doing is impacting people's lives right it's improving people's lives it's gonna make their lives better than why not and you think yeah you know it's it's interesting in the brain every now and then I'll get like once a year I do an annual sale of my own white horse and I just did that at the start of the year and there'll be people posting on social media how can you sell spirituality medicine and meditation should be free and knowledge should be free you don't want nothing in life should be free if you ever expect anything to be free that means you don't understand how things work right the program is that built the app want to be paid so they can have pay rent and feed their families and feed themselves right the guy that full my cost wants to be paid so he can eat yeah right and you did and you paid him I paid him and my cousin that you know edited my talk wants to be paid all these people along the way stripe that process the payment wants to be paid so they can pay their employees I mean it's a crazy chain of like people that need to be paid in order to put this one product out there yeah no I just I totally see that in my dad you know he passed about a decade ago but before he died people would say hey Larry when are you gonna give me free jazz tickets you know because our family owns the NBA you Taj asked that basketball team here in Salt Lake hey and his response sometimes would be well I'll give you free tickets when the players play for free so just like you're saying video guy wants to be paid you know this yeah and we tried that other thing communism from each his own what is it to each according to his needs or something like that and we saw how well that well I don't know the Chinese are pulling it off interestingly with their amalgam of capital stick communism but anyway that's not the podcast I thought I was hosting well I know we're at our time but if you're okay I just want to ask two more questions one about writing and one about promotion okay okay so as I mentioned before that usually this part in the conversation I'll ask something about the creative process something about writing and I know you've spoken about this before well actually now have three questions because one is will you or maybe you already have write a book I have written the book signed a contract with the book age and soon to take it to some publishers to hopefully get it published to see it awesome congratulations oh thank you that was painful yeah for sure are you sure so so that was fun and then the next the next question is about writing do you have a would you have a title do you at least have a working title for it I wavering focus I could have seen that coming I love that that's good that's great anyway too focused I don't think so and then this question about writing I mean you can answer this however you want but what have you learned about the power of writing that has served you maybe you can speak just for a moment about the the connection between the writing and subconscious ah yes very clever man who pays attention to free podcast notes I think it's very useful by the way yes s you write you know there's so many things when it comes to that so you know one thing that happens when you write is you're moving energy or emotion that's residing in your subconscious mind and that emotion is moving from your subconscious through your conscious mind through your hands into the piece of paper so I always tell people energy cannot be transferred energy cannot be created and destroyed but it can be transferred to transform from one thing to another so one way to move energy out of your emotion out of you is to write it in a piece of paper so a lot of times you get a handwritten note you feel the emotion that's gone into the piece of paper very different than an email you know our handmade things where people put emotion into it but but writing allows you to move him motion from your subconscious into a piece of paper into another element and then the exercise I give for people to get rid of negative things is then you take the piece of paper and you burn it host an exercise that my guru taught us how to do to get rid of unresolved emotional experiences that that are residing in your subconscious mind I think that's really beautiful and I I have done that and I would say from my experience it works but I would ask you as the person that just and I like shared that with everyone listening does that really work that's I've written hundreds and hundreds of pages and I would say it's one of the most transformational things I've ever done you know the just one minute diversion to take you to have to experience divinity within yourself which is where we started this whole conversation you have to take your awareness from the conscious mind wave functions most of the time move it through the conscious mind through the subconscious into the super conscious area of the mind which is the more refine spiritual creative area of the my but in order to get to the super conscious mind you need to go through the subconscious and if the subconscious is so filled with unresolved emotional things from the past can't get through that that's where most people get stuck it's in the subconscious mind so this exercise of doing this helps to eradicate the subconscious of unresolved emotions allowing that awareness to go through it into the superconscious area of the mind and experience more refined areas of the light I think that's so beautiful I really love that I don't know if you have this experience but more and more I find myself I feel like I maybe shouldn't say this but like I feel like I don't even yeah I'm gonna just desist with this in the interest of time but I feel I'm not operating from the rational mind more and more yeah this is the conscious is the more intuitive mine yeah I'm just grateful for it with all this that used to just concern me and I'm like literally it's almost like a dream state that I'm like what was I gonna do or say and I don't remember but it's not important you know being more fully in the present moment I'm really nice the beautiful thing that'll help you stay young yeah I think so I think so I think so many people age because of all the worries and then line and the fears in their mind yeah I think you're right that's a Mark Twain thing about I've suffer I'm an old man I've suffered many was he say like many catastrophes some of which have come to pass yeah you know something got that well the last the last question that I have in is and it almost doesn't feel appropriate to end on this after what you just shared it was so beautiful about this movie no it's about promote it's about promotion right because I know not every every teacher or every coach or every thought leader or whatever not every one of us is interested in promoting ourselves and get and be creating an awareness and creating an interest and you know having people sign up or even pay but some of us are and I think a lot of people listening to this are so my question on that topic is what have you learned when it comes to promotion that has served you well I would say you know promote yourself for what in such a way that is authentic promote in such a way that it's honest don't say things that you know not true in the sense like you know by now the price is going up when the price is actually not going up I mean if the price is going up then it's fair to say that but don't say things you know in your sales technique too that are untrue don't also instill fear in people to make them buy it's a lot of people do you know that's that's not cool you know just sell your product just share what it is it does the best you can and how it will impact their lives and be honest about and people want to buy great and if they don't they don't you know but if your product or make an impact their lives and you can share that message clearly then people will buy it and here's the other thing and just mainly applies to women and it's very sad for me to see this this that you don't have to take your clothes off to sell something you don't have to post a naked picture you know a picture of you and the bikini on Instagram for people to pay attention you know there's so many amazing women up that keep their clothes on and pack the world you know in tremendous ways so don't feel like you need to do that you know people don't want your body they they want you know what wisdom do you have and what leggings you have and so they can improve themselves and I think it's it's a very sad thing that's so much of that you see so much about in today's well yeah and then you see all the women that you know create so much impact in the world without doing anything you know the NGO Greta bug you know sixteen years old right she doesn't have to take a top off to have millions of people follow it and you know have millions of people come rally with a what a what a great show you know promoting something you know an idea that's amazing I just being authentic and clear about it yeah and big guy incongruent and like you're saying on authentic yes isn't really there well done depandi this has been such a privilege I have enjoyed our conversation so much thank you likewise thank you Brian [Music] despite living in an age where we have more comforts and conveniences than ever before life isn't working for many people whether it's in the developed world where we're dealing with depression anxiety addiction divorce jobs we hate relationships that don't work or people in the developing world who don't have access to clean water or sanitation or healthcare or education or who live in conflict zones there's a lot of people on the planet that life isn't working very well for if you're one of those people I invite you to connect with me at good living calm I've created life's best practices breakthrough coaching to help you navigate the transitions that we all go through whether you've just graduated school you're going through a divorce you just got married you're headed into retirement you're starting a business you just lost your job whatever it is you're facing I've developed a 36 week course that you go through with me and a community of achievers and seekers who are committed to improving their own lives and the lives of others so through this online program you will have the opportunity to go deep into every area of your life explore life's big questions create answers for yourself in community get clarity and accountability if that's something you're interested to learn about I invite you to contact me directly at brian at Brian Miller comm or by visiting good living com [Music] Oh

Channel: Brilliant Miller

Views: 62,387

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Id: 0HXEs_Pjllo

Length: 83min 21sec (5001 seconds)

Published: Mon May 18 2020