The Skill Every Leader Needs: Focus (feat. Dandapani)

Hi, I'm Susan Drumm and welcome to the Enlightened Executive where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each episode we feature groundbreaking techniques and strategies to help you get the edge in personal and leadership effectiveness. With me today, I am delighted to introduce Dandapani. Dandapani is a Hindu priest, an entrepreneur, and was a monk for 10 years. After graduating from university with a degree in electrical engineering, he left it all behind to become a Hindu monk under the guidance of one of Hinduism's foremost spiritual leaders of our time, Guru Deva. For 10 years, he lived the life of a serious personal discipline and training at his guru's cloistered monastery in Hawaii. When his vows expired, he chose to venture out into the world, making New York City his home. He now works with entrepreneurs and some of the top athletes in the world, helping them understand and leverage their mind so they can be the best at what they do. He does this by empowering them with tools and teachings that have been used by Hindu monks of his tradition for thousands of years. Among his clients are companies such as Fortress Investment Group, McKinsey, Trivago Red Ventures, Amex and more. He and his wife are also passionately creating a 33 acre spiritual sanctuary and botanical garden in Costa Rica to further their mission. That's where he's joining me from today. Welcome, Dandapani.

Hi, Susan. Thank you so much for having me on your show.

I am so excited you are here. I want to talk all about how you help executives and entrepreneurs focus. So your focus is how to focus, Right. Why is that important and why does that matter? So that's what we're going to dive into today.

Yeah. So for me, the reason for always starting with focus is because if you can't focus, you can't really learn anything. So everyone who shares insights on a particular topic, whether it be management or finance or productivity or whatever it may be, may think like, oh, my topic is really important. And I think leaders need to know this. Right. Better management, better PR skills, HR skills. Like agree. I'm not saying your topic is not important, but if the people that you're training can't even focus long enough to absorb what you're sharing with them, how can you share with them what you want to share with them?

Right.

Everybody needs to have the basic skill of being able to focus long enough to absorb what is being conveyed to them. If you want to train someone in accounting and if they don't know how to add a divide, it's going to be a problem. The first step is learning how to add a divide, subtract, multiply. I'm no accountant, but I'm assuming that's a basic accounting 101.

Yeah. Maybe some people would say, well, why? I mean, isn't that come naturally, like the ability to focus? Why do you find that that's lacking now? Or maybe it's always been lacking? What's your take on it?

Yeah, because we're never trained how to focus. Right. It's, you know, when we grow up, we're told to focus by our parents, our teachers. And I hear parents saying all the time, you know, their kids, can you just focus for a second? Yeah. Like, great. Do you want to show me how to do it? So, for example, do you play the piano?

No.

No. So what if I looked at you and I said, susan, play the piano. I said, play the piano. It's not fair for me to stare you down, raise my voice at you, tell you to play the piano. What's the first step? If you want to play the piano, you have to learn how to play the piano. And the second step is you have to practice. How much do you practice? Well, depending how good you want to be, if you want to play for your Aunt Ethel on the weekend, maybe you practice 15 minutes a week. If you want to play for Juilliard, you might have to practice seven hours a day. Yeah, people just assume it's a skill that we naturally have. The same way we assume that we can naturally know how to delegate or communicate effectively. No, we have to learn these things.

And so is that essentially what you do when you work with executives and entrepreneurs is almost lengthen their ability to focus from. Maybe they could focus before for 30 seconds, and you lengthen it to an hour or whatever it may be, basically.

But I would say that would be a second or third step down the road. The first step is really making the case as to why they need to focus. And I think if we don't make the case, people go like, yeah, okay, I can see your point. It's important to focus, but then they just don't do it.

Do you think many of them already think that they can focus on, like, they didn't think they had a problem.

A lot of them will admittedly say they cannot focus, but I've met people who say I can focus, and then two seconds later, they're somewhere else, like a rabbit, a squirrel, you know? But no, a lot of the entrepreneurs I know, I work with say they can focus. They can't focus, so they actually need help with it. And for me, the biggest case of making. One of the big things I make the case to entrepreneurs is that, you know, I've never run a big company. I have my own business, but we're a really small team. I've never run a big company with 50 or 1000 or 2000 or 5000 employees. Would it be fair to say that an executive, an entrepreneur of a large company would want to increase their efficiency and productivity as a general goal?

Absolutely.

So if your employees have never been taught to be concentrated and they're perpetually distracted throughout the whole day, how many hours are they actually spent spending focusing on the task at hand? Probably very, very few, because they're constantly distracted. And then the environment within the workplace is also built to be distracted. You know, often office floor plans where people are constantly interrupting each other, you know, and how. How do you expect to be efficient when you can't even stay with a task long enough to solve it?

Absolutely. And so does that read into how you eliminate distractions so that you can focus? Do you spend time there?

That's the general thing that people think is the solution that I need to eliminate distractions in order to focus. A common first reaction is, yes, I need to eliminate my distractions. No, you don't need to. You just need to learn to focus so you don't get distracted by the distractions.

And so how do you teach this ability to focus? What. What's involved in doing that?

I. Well, typically companies hire me to come and do an event, a workshop with them. I have an online course for people that want to learn how to do this. I typically start by teaching them how the mind works. Right. Teach them how the mind works. Because you focus with your mind, and if you don't know how your mind works, then it's going to be really hard to understand it, harness it, and focus it. You need to know the inner workings of the mind. We don't learn about our mind, therefore, we don't really understand how the mind works. We never get taught about it. We never get trained about the mind. And therefore we can't utilize the full power of the mind. So even in order to focus, you really have to understand the mind, understand how it works, the mechanics of it, learn to harness it, and then use it to focus.

Do you think that our ability to focus has gotten worse because of social media and email and just. Let's say it seems like more things call at our attention? Yeah.

Okay, I would agree, because the rate at which things are coming at us now is exponentially greater than what it was 100 years ago. So one of the things I say to people is, whatever it is you practice is what you end up becoming really good at. And practice doesn't know how to discriminate between what's good for you and what's not good for you. So if you practice something negative, you become good at it. You practice something positive, you become good at it. So, for example, if I practice distraction all day long, I become really good at distraction. If I practice concentration all day long, I become really good at concentration. Example, if I wanted to play with Julia, you know, most people might say, oh, you might need to practice six, seven hours a day, seven days a week. And then usually ask them after six months, will I play for Julia? And most people go like, no, Right? If you look at a typical entrepreneur, typical executive that's constantly task switching from one thing to another, responding to stuff. And if you look at the average entrepreneur, 24 hours in a day, most entrepreneurs sleep, what, eight hours a day? Never. Right, so it's more like wish, Right, So it's like six hours a day. Yeah, six and a half hours a day. So you're awake for at least 16 to 17 hours of the day. And out of that 17 hours a day, how many hours is the average entrepreneur practicing distraction? Is it six hours a day? Or is it more like 10, 12, 13 hours a day? And if you think 10, 12 hours a day, is it six days a week? Where all of a sudden on Sunday he's hyper focused with his family? Absolutely not. It's probably 10, 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Imagine if I practice the piano 12 to 13 hours a day, seven days a Week. How good would I be at the piano after six months, after a year? E would have nothing on me.

So what about what do you say to people that say, but I practice it and I'm really good at multitasking now, and they think they're actually. That's why I ask, you know, the distinction of, do I, do I actually need to work on focus. Am I, am I good at dealing with multitasking?

What do you think multitasking doesn't. Again, I have no science to back anything that I say. I don't come from a scientific background. I have an engineering degree. But what I share comes from my personal experience, from my monastic training and personal experience of the mind and application of it. Right. So I have no data, nothing to back up what I'm saying. But you can definitely see research online now where there's a lot of research Showing that the mind cannot do two things at one time. Your awareness cannot be in two places of the mind at one time. What's happening is your awareness is switching from one thing to another so rapidly, it gives you the sense you're doing two things at one time. Now, my guru Gurudeva had a beautiful saying. He said, where awareness goes, energy flows. If my awareness is moving from one task to another to another, my energy is flowing from one task to another to another. If my awareness is jumping all over the mind, I'm consuming tremendous amount of energy, which then depletes me. The less energy I have, the less ability also I have to concentrate. If you've ever been to like a heavy machinery place or place where they're, you know, cutting tools, they'll say, don't operate machines when tired, right? Yes. Why? Because when you're tired, you can't concentrate. You might cut your arm off. Right. But don't drive when you're tired because it's harder to focus. So one of the side effects of multitasking is that you're consuming tremendous amount of energy, which then is energy you could have invested into your priorities in life, which also then reduces your ability to focus.

Yeah.

And every time you disengage with A to engage with B, now you have to reconnect to where you left off with B. Engage with b for like 30 seconds. Disengage with b. Re. Engage with a. Find out where you left off with A. Reconnect there and continue. And you're losing momentum, you're losing flow. If you're a creative person and you have a flow of drawing or designing or programming something, and someone comes up to you in the office and say, oh, where's the photocopy paper? I think they moved it from that cabinet to that one. And then you go back to sketching the fall collection and you go like, oh, was I doing the button of the zipper? And I just lost my flow. And that's where in companies, so much efficiency, productivity is lost. I honestly feel know that distraction is causing companies millions of dollars, millions and millions, probably more billions. And what companies are typically doing is finding patches. Right. Most companies, most executives, most entrepreneurs take the approach of, how can I eliminate distractions? That's their response to this. They understand that distractions are problem. Let's eliminate distraction. How do we do this? Let's turn off Facebook for everyone in our company so no one in our company can get on Facebook. Now I've helped my team focus. No, you have not. You put a Band aid on the wound. You've not healed the wound, you've not solved the problem. Because they still cannot concentrate because you've never taught them how to. And that's where the issue is. Exactly.

Yeah.

So you can turn off every social media platform in your company. Your team still cannot concentrate. Why? Because you never taught them to.

You're still going to have Bob running over to share the latest news on the sports update or whatever it may be when we're back in the office.

Right.

And then you think about distractions at home. I mean, people are trying to focus and, you know, you just heard my dog barking and, you know, trying. Yes, yes. And so trying to be able to continue to focus in the face of those distractions. I imagine having been a monk for as long as you have, you mastered that art and that ability. So I think it's amazing that you're sharing this now in the business context.

I'm wondering, I would say, Susan, I mastered it. I think I'm a little better than others.

I can't put you in the master category.

Not me.

God, if I can't do that with you, can I do that with.

What was that again?

You said exactly what, Repeat that exactly. So tell me, give us a little example of how doing some of this work has helped an executive or entrepreneur. What, you know, I think the story behind it or noticing, okay, when you actually, where were they before and where were they after and what was, you know, what was the impact of doing this type of work?

I'll give you one example. I'll use me as an example. Okay. So I'm an entrepreneur. I think this, in one of the perspectives I share with people, there are four steps. There's purpose, there's focus, there's simplify and sacrifice. So purpose, focus, simplify and sacrifice. The first thing you want to know is your purpose, what's your vision and mission for your company? Those define your priorities, what's important. Once that's clear, then you want to learn how to develop concentration so that you can stay focused on your priorities. So for me, I'm very clear what my purpose is. I'm very clear what my priorities are. Very my project. Here in Costa Rica, we have a 50 year plan. We have a 300 year plan. I've got my priorities figured out, what I need to focus on. One of the things that comes, a precursor to focusing is really identifying your priorities so you know what to focus on. Because people quite often ask me, dandapani, can you teach me how to focus? I go Yes, I can. And then I say to them, once you learn to focus, what will you focus on? They go, I have no idea.

We got to figure that out first.

Yes.

Right.

You got to figure out what you want to focus and then stay focused on it. You know, for entrepreneurs, once you know your priorities, then the ability to learn to focus so that you can stay focused on your priorities. You have to realize you have a finite amount of time, a finite amount of energy, and a finite amount of finance. No matter how wealthy you are, you only have X amount of dollars, but you need to stay focused, have the ability to stay focused on your priorities. The byproduct of that, if you can stay narrow and deep. Right. Is. Is success. Right. And that's where I think most people fail, including myself.

And have you seen so. So going back to where what you've witnessed for other leaders, is there an example or two that you can share, how people feel after they have this ability to focus or what they're able to accomplish?

Yes, I would say some of the byproducts is that people find they have a lot more energy, because one of the things is you identify. Once you identify your priorities, you realize what and who is not aligned with your priorities. And then your ability to focus allows you to stay concentrated on your priorities, which means now you're not investing energy into people and things that don't really matter. You're also able to identify what opportunities are aligned with your purpose and what opportunities are not. A lot of people say, like, oh, this is a great opportunity. I don't call something an opportunity unless it's aligned with my purpose. So opportunities are not opportunities unless they're aligned with where you want to go. If not, they're a distraction. So I think one of the things I found with the work that I've done with entrepreneurs and executives is they find they have a lot more time, a lot more energy. And I think that the other big thing benefit from focus is that you really have deeper relationships with the experiences that you're creating in your life. Right. You have deeper relationships with your clients, with your employees, with your team, with everything that you're doing. So many people cannot be present in the experience.

That's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah.

And how can you be present if you can't focus? Have you ever had the experience where you may or may not have had this, but have you ever had the experience where you're speaking to someone and they go, susan, wow. You. Have you had anybody say that to you before?

Where am I? Yeah, not in those terms, but it's more, you know, how people do it. What are you doing right now? Oh, shoot. I was responding to an email while I was trying to talk to you and you caught me.

Right. And so I've had so many entrepreneurs say to me, like, where they're talking to their spouse and the spouse, you know, like this, literally standing in front of the spouse, and their spouse will say, where are you? What they meant to. Well, the obvious sound, the correct answer is, while I'm standing in front of you. That's the correct answer. What the spouse meant to ask is, I know you're physically present. Where are you mentally?

Exactly.

Right, exactly. You're somewhere else. So now you're not having that full experience with your spouse. In the same way people sit with their clients, with their children, with their team members, they're not present and therefore are not engaging fully. How much information is wasted when your client is speaking to you or even a potential client is speaking to you. And because you can't concentrate, you can't gather enough information and therefore leverage that information to help them or grow your business?

Yeah, we call that the double loser program at one point, because you're losing both, right?

You're.

You can't. Whatever you're thinking about, you probably can't do. I see this a lot in facilitation of meetings. So I have an off site, bringing the executive team together and, you know, we talk about, don't get into the double loser program where if you're thinking about what else you need to do back at the office, you can't actually go do those things.

Right.

So you lose out doing that and then you're not physically here to take in what needs to happen here. So you lose out in both. So why, you know, and all of this as you're talking about, the foundation of it is this ability to focus and do it, do it with ease and give the people the gift of your presence on top of it.

Exactly. It's one of the highest forms of love and respect. I experienced this with my guru. His ability to be present every time we spoke showed me how much he loved me and how much he cared for me, how much he respected me and how much he valued what I had to say, even if what I had to say, they might have been stupid. His ability to be just fully present and his ability to do that came from his ability to concentrate, to keep his awareness, mind on me the entire duration. And for entrepreneurs and executives, you think, how do companies Like Facebook and Google make money or grow. They gather data. Right. That's what they do. They gather information. When you can focus on a potential client and actually concentrate long enough to be present, you are gathering data every time they open their mouth.

Same.

And that data that you're gathering from that potential client, you can leverage for your benefit or for your company's benefit.

Absolutely.

To better serve them, to better create a better quality product, whatever it may be. But if you cannot be present, you cannot hear what they're saying. If you cannot hear what you're saying.

And you're losing out, you've missed the opportunity. It's also just building a relationship. I mean, you can't really do much without building the relationship. And that's where it comes from. Well, this has been amazing. Dandapani, tell us, where can people learn more from you or from your programs?

Yeah. So best way is to go to my website, dandapani.org that's. I'm sure Susan will throw a link up on the screen. I also have an app that's available on iOS and Android, so you can go to the App Store or the Play Store and just search Dandapani. You can download the app. The app is pretty.

It's just Dandapani. Is the name of the app just Dandapani?

Yep. Just one word, like Prince Madonna thing, and then the app is free to download. And there are three courses on there. One course is learning how to concentrate. Another course is learning how to meditate. And then the latest one that I just launched is really learning how to manage your energy based on the premise that you have a finite amount of energy each day. How do we wisely invest it, distribute, and prevent the hemorrhaging of that energy?

Great. Great. All right. Well, thank you for joining me from Costa Rica and I am with you in spirit.

With my background, it's amazing how, like, you can keep that tree still from moving. The coconut tree hasn't moved.

Shazam. Well, thank you again and I'll see you on the next episode. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'd like to point you to two immediate next steps. First, hit the subscribe button. Subscribe second, if you have not yet downloaded our guide to delegation, where I share the strategies that CEOs of 9 and 10 figure businesses know to getting more done with your team. You can do that now@ enlightenedexec.com delegate. I'll see you on the next episode of the enlightened Executive.