This is How You Build Willpower & Discipline - Dandapani | Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. Your question of today is, how do you improve and enhance your willpower and discipline? And I know this is a subject a lot of people talk about in our Facebook community. They want to get themselves to do something. They want to be consistent. They can't get themselves to read or to go to the gym and to exercise their willpower. And I'm excited about this conversation because here I have my friend Don Dipani.

Hi.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me on your show, Jim.

Yeah, I'm really excited about this. Now, some people, for the few people who haven't seen your videos online, you, you grew up in Australia. You, and this is interesting, you went to college for electrical engineering. And then from there you went right into the, you gave that all up and went to the monastery.

Yep. Lived as a celibate Hindu monk for 10 years in a cloistered monastery in Hawaii. And then after that, I left and moved to New York.

To be able to test your concentration and all that discipline.

And, you know, it's interesting, you're the first person to actually say that because people always ask me why New York City, and I say it's a perfect place to put the tools into practice.

Right, right. To go from like a monastery in Hawaii to come to one of the busiest, most— what a lot of people think most fast-paced, hectic environments.

Exactly. What a great place to test if the tools work, right? And they do work no matter where, in New York City.

And that's what we're going to talk about. So you were in the monastery for 10 years.

Yep.

And you're practicing, you're doing your mental training, your meditation, you're honing your concentration.

Yeah.

So what is— how would you define— let's go, we're talking about willpower and discipline. Some people use those interchangeably. How would you Define those words.

Yeah, I define them very simply. I define willpower as a mental muscle. So if you could draw biceps around your brain in a very simplified way, that's how I would define willpower. Right. And discipline is, you know, I look— well, actually, there's 3 elements I would say. There's willpower, discipline, and love. And a lot of people want to create discipline in their life, but they start and then they struggle and they stop. And I feel like the driving factor behind discipline is love. When you love something and you're passionate about it, then you want to discipline your life more so that you can have more of that love. So I have a daughter, for example, she's 10 and a half months old, and I love her very much, and I want to spend a lot of time with her. And in order to spend more time with her, I need to discipline my life, right? So I use my willpower to create that discipline, right? That strict rigidness of my day that allows me to have more time to spend And with my daughter. But it's the love that drives the act of being disciplined. And I use my willpower to discipline myself by saying no to things, no to opportunities, no to people, and structuring my life and being clear on what my priorities are. So I say discipline is the byproduct, whereas willpower is what's needed to create that structure. But the base of it is love. At the source of it's love. If you If you don't have something you're passionate about, something that you love passionately, then you're not driven to discipline your life. You may start it, but then you can't sustain it.

So let's, let's take an example for somebody watching. Maybe they want to, they want to work out.

Yeah.

And then so how would you, how would you apply that towards— would it be exercising more, more willpower? Or they maybe they want to be disciplined and make sure they do that 3 times I would say even going even deeper, right?

I mean, like, why are you exercising? So that you can have a great body for the summer? Or is there a greater impetus? Because a lot of people want to exercise because they feel like, oh, I'm a little bit out of shape and, you know, I need to go exercise and it's the summer's coming. I need to look good. That's not enough of an impetus, right? But if there's a greater impetus to go and exercise because you believe that your body houses your mind, it houses your soul, and I need a good, strong body and for X purpose, I can live a more passionate life, I can do things better, I can experience life better with a nice healthy body, then that's a drive to go. But if you just want to go exercise because you want to have a great body for the summer, then I don't know if that's enough to, to sustain.

And that's the thing about motivation. It's not sustainable.

Exactly. And a lot of people come up to me and go, are you a motivational speaker? And I say, absolutely not. I actually do not believe in motivation, and I do not believe in inspiration because I feel it's, it's an injection of energy into someone and emotion to get them high for a moment. And then once that goes away, you default back to who you are. And when I was growing up, Jim, you know, I, as a young kid, I'd go listen to monks speak. And because I was so fascinated with the monastic life, every time a monk came to town, I asked my parents to go take me to see the monk speak. A lot of them would tell inspirational things, motivational things. I'd listen to them go home, tell myself I'm going to practice everything they told me to do. And I did for about a week or 2 weeks, right? Then all the inspiration went away because you see the guy sitting on stage with the robe and the beard and the beats, and you go like, I want to be him. That's Kwai Chang Caine, you know, just the kung fu master, you know, I want to be him. And then the inspiration goes and you default back to who you are because there was never a deeper passion, right? And I realized that motivation and inspiration doesn't really work. What you want to figure out is, you know, your— this is getting a little bit deeper— what is your purpose in life and what's your passion in life, right? And once you figure out that passion, that love, that's the driving factor of your life, then it's so much easier to discipline your life. If you work with athletes, you work with professional actors, what drives them? They love what they do, right? They love— the tennis players that you work with, they love tennis.

Right.

And that, that love drives them to be disciplined.

And that purpose determines their priorities.

Exactly. But if you didn't have that, you couldn't cultivate the willpower then to discipline your life. So I think a lot of people will struggle, and I don't want to deceive people by telling them like, hey, you know, do this and you'll have the willpower you need to discipline your life.

Right.

Before that comes really finding out what your purpose in life is. What is it you're truly passionate about? Because then you'll do whatever it takes to discipline your life. And you'll cultivate your will and use your will then to create that structure, that structures that discipline.

Now, do you believe people have— it's interesting because I think a large part of people who are watching this right now, they believe that they haven't found their purpose, or they think that there is just one purpose to their life. What's your feeling about purpose?

Yeah, I feel like a lot of people don't know their purpose because they've never spent any time trying to find their purpose. And there's no structured approach to it. Even when you're growing up, nobody tells you in school that you need a purpose in life. But if you look at your daily life, your whole life is driven by purpose. People get in a car. Why? Because there's a purpose to drive to go to dinner, drive to go to work, right? You take a shower, there's a purpose. You know, everything you do throughout the day, all the mundane things, is purpose-driven. So why shouldn't life have a purpose? And most people don't know their purpose because they never spend time with themselves. And then, Arjun, people say to me, oh, I spend time with myself every evening. I walk my dog for half an hour. That's my alone time. And I'm like, no, that's walking your dog. And you know me, I love defining things. You know, people say, oh, I go for a jog in the park. That's my alone time. I go, no, that's jogging in the park. You can't say that's your alone time. When I say you want to find your purpose, you need to sit down. No music, no podcasts, no journals, eyes closed. Going internally and having a dialogue with yourself. The way I can get to know you is to spend time with you, right? We met every week, every Friday for lunch for 2 hours. After a year, we know each other really well. I know what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what drives you, what doesn't drive you. Same way, how would you discover your purpose? By spending structured time with yourself in introspection.

And so we're talking about Willpower, we're talking about discipline. But underneath that, it's interesting because I don't think a lot of people relate that necessarily to love and self-awareness. But self-awareness is so important. It's a superpower that you can develop.

It totally is. And if you don't know what you want, then you'll never be driven. And that's why if you look at most people, they, they go from one thing to another. They're driven by the trends of society. Now this is popular, so I'll do it for a while. You know, maybe it's yoga, then it's Soul Cycling, and then it's this and it's that. And people are just going from one thing to another. If you look at the most successful people in the world, they just do one thing.

Right.

They play tennis or they play football. You know, like the people, some of the athletes that I work with, you know, once a soccer player, and that's all he's done ever since he was a kid. He's played soccer. He doesn't do tennis. I mean, he might play with his cousin on the weekend or something, you know, but that's all he does. He just does one thing, and that's why he excels in it.

And if you could find your purpose and you could find the love in what you do, you could add 5 days a week, you know, to your, to your life. Because most— a lot of people aren't doing what they love those 5 days a week, and they're looking forward to 2 days out of the week.

Exactly.

And now, is it possible to do the opposite? Not only love what you do and get those 5 days back, but can you find the love in what you do as well? Can people find love and joy in what they do, in what they're doing currently?

Yeah, I believe so. You know, I was— I remember a cute story. I was in the monastery talking to my guru, and I had some assignment they'd given me, and I just didn't like it. It was just— and he saw that I wasn't passionate about it, that I had no love for it. And he reached down in front of him, and he picked up a pencil and held it in front of him, and he said, I can get inspired by this pencil. Look at this piece. Look at this pencil. It's a piece of wood, right? A lead in it. They drilled a hole, they stuck a lead in there. Isn't that fascinating? How did they get the lead in there? You know, and he started to dive into that pencil in such a concentrated way that I started to get inspired by this pencil.

Right, right.

So he taught me then to— my ability then to be concentrated and to dive into what I'm doing Whether it's washing the dishes or sweeping the floor or cleaning the house or working on accounting of my business, I can get passionate about what I want to if I took the time to stay focused on it and really explore it. Right. Most people can't stay concentrated on something long enough to actually see joy in it.

So you're going from your purpose, what gives you joy, love, and that gives you the energy and the impetus To be able to be disciplined with your life. Now, when we're talking about how willpower, you have those muscles on your mind. What are some exercises that people who are watching or listening can practice to be able to build their willpower?

So one simple technique that my guru taught me in the monastery, the way to develop willpower is to finish what you begin. It's really easy to start something. But to finish something takes tremendous amount of will, right? At the start, everybody's inspired; they're full of enthusiasm and energy because they're motivated. They're motivated, right? So something new, it's inspiring. And then halfway through the project, everybody looks at each other and go, "Whose idea was this?" Right? And then people just abandon it and go start something new. When you finish what you begin, you actually it requires tremendous amount of will. So the way I develop my bicep is I use my bicep to lift weights. to develop more bicep, right? I use my bicep to develop bicep. The way you develop willpower is to use your mental muscle to develop more muscle. So every time you finish what you begin, you're actually developing willpower. So for me, the way I develop willpower is I look at my average day and I go, what are the opportunities in my day that I can use to develop willpower? One simple thing that I talk about quite often is every day I sleep, right? It's, it's a recurring event. I never go a day without sleeping, right?

Me too.

Right. So every day I sleep. So before I sleep, I floss, I brush my teeth, throw on my pajamas, I go to sleep. How do I finish the process of sleep? I make the bed in the morning. So every day I make— I wake up in the morning, I make the bed. There's not a single day that goes by that I haven't made the bed in the last 25 years, right? So every day I wake up, I finish. So when I make the bed, I finish what I begin, and I'm developing willpower. So now most people look at mundane things throughout the day, like making the bed, as I'm like, oh, that's a mundane task. Why should I waste time or energy? Whereas in the monastery, we were trained that all the simple tasks throughout the day, from making the bed to putting away your cups or washing your breakfast dish in the morning, and you come into the house and you take your shoes off, instead of kicking it to the side, you can put them neatly. It takes an extra 5 seconds, but you're finishing the process of coming home.

Right.

Right. And all those things are little acts to develop willpower. And imagine if you were taking a pebble and putting it in a jar every time, you know, 2 weeks later the jar will be filled with pebbles. So I looked at the tasks throughout the day, finishing those tasks as opportunities to develop willpower. And after a month, I've developed tremendous amount of willpower. Now I can use that willpower and direct it with my— align it with my passion to create discipline in my life so that I can enjoy what I love more.

Because how you do anything is, is how you're training yourself to do everything.

Exactly. Yeah. And it's about creating rituals throughout the day, and people don't realize that, right? So the whole monastery, the life in the monastery was filled with rituals. Everything we did the whole day— by looking at a monk, you could tell what time of day it was because you knew what he was doing, right? So I structured my life now to create as many rituals as possible throughout the day. And I'm even training my 10-month-old daughter the same way. You know, she sleeps at a certain time, she eats at a certain time. We take her for a walk at 5 o'clock in the evening every day at 5 PM. She bathes at a certain time just to train the rituals. And rituals shape the subconscious mind, helps you to create those patterns in the subconscious.

Okay, that's absolutely incredible. So what would your message be for everybody who's watching if we're going to give them a challenge?

I would say, you know, step 1, truly take time to figure out what your passion in life is, because that, that's really going to drive your ability to discipline your life.

And one of the ways is being just by yourself.

Yes. And the simple, simple thing to do is wake up in the morning, have a shower, find a quiet spot in your apartment or your home, and sit down with yourself for 5 minutes. No music, No books, no podcasts, nothing, and just have a conversation. If I wanted to get to know Jim, I need to have a conversation with you. I need to ask you questions, right? If I ask you what you ate yesterday, I don't learn very much. But I ask you, why do you do what you do? Tell me about your life, passion. And if I do that every week, I'll really get to know you. So have that same conversation with yourself. If you do that every day, I bet you after a month or 3 months, you'll start to discover what is truly important And that becomes your passion, which then you can align your willpower by finishing what you begin every day. Pick one task. If making your bed in the morning— if you don't make the bed in the morning, start making your bed every morning. Wake up, make your bed.

Or wash the dishes.

Wash the dishes. And every time you finish what you begin, don't think that you're making the bed. Think that you're developing willpower.

You're training.

You're training. It's a training practice, right? So when I make the bed, I don't look at it as, oh, I'm making the bed. I look at it as, I'm developing my willpower and that drives me to make the bed. And that the willpower I'm developing here allows me to spend time to discipline my life, which allows me to get more of what I love in my life.

Astonishing.

That's why I make the bed.

I love that. Yeah. Dandapani, how do people stay in touch with you and find out more about your teachings?

I would say the easiest way is to go to my website, which is dandapani.org. I also have an app. On the App Store, on the Play Store.

Okay.

So they can download it.

I love that. We'll put up links to everything, to Don DePani's site, to his app, and more, and his social media on our show notes, always at jimkwik.com/notes. And I challenge everybody to take a screenshot of this episode, this video, or this audio, and tag Don DePani, tag myself in it so we see it. And say what you're going to do to challenge yourself, specifically your willpower, to be able to exercise your willpower and have greater levels of discipline. What's one thing you're going to add to completion? Because how we do anything is certainly how we do everything.

Yeah.

Thanks for being on the show.

Thank you very much, Jim. I appreciate it.