We were fortunate to attend a session with Dandapani. To quote his own website “an internationally renowned and highly sort after speaker who is revolutionising the business world with his practical and simple systematic approach to balancing work/life challenges”.
What an amazing experience. Dandapani grew up in Australia and after completing an Electrical Engineering degree decided to become a Hindu monk and spent 10 years in a monastery in Hawaii.
He spoke firstly about concentration and pointed out that this is something that is rarely taught and even more rarely practiced. We tell our children, as we were, to ‘concentrate’ but we never teach them how. The benefit of concentration is deeper relationships and a mountaintop perspective, or as some call it ‘the power of observation’.
To concentrate you need willpower. His 3 tips for developing better willpower were
- Finish that which you begin
- Finish it well, beyond your expectations
- Do a little more than you think that you are able to do
“where awareness goes, energy flows” Gurudeva
The discussion moved on to energy management and how as with money, we also have a limited resource in our energy. It is something that should be conserved and spent most where our highest priorities lie and invested in areas that give a good positive return. By gaining some focus into what is most important to us we can better allocate our energy to those projects.
Dandapani then touched on the topic of ‘energy vampires’. Essentially these are people that are not uplifting when you spend time around them. These people can either be in this situation as ‘transient’ meaning they are going through a temporary ‘bad time’, whether it be through the loss of a loved one or other tragic circumstances. In these situations, it’s important to be supportive and understanding and invest your chosen amount energy into these people.
However there are others who are ‘Inherent’ Energy Vampires. These type people of people will ‘suck’ your energy consistently and cause you to spend excessive amounts of energy on them, with no reason or gain. How do you protect yourself from them? You place the burden of responsibility on them.
Dandapani carries on pointing out we must be ‘affectionately detached’ but always kind, gentle, sincere and loving to these types of people if our paths cross. Use positive statements rather than asking ‘how are you?’. Because let’s face it, you don’t really care how they are, nor do you want to listen to their answer. So, positive statements if you run into these people such as, ‘isn’t it a lovely day’ are more appropriate. Be careful not to be drawn into their negativity and excuse yourself quickly but always maintain your kindness and sincerity.
The last topic that was discussed was how to influence others to act. He suggested that those of us in the ‘advice’ or ‘coaching’ type positions always end any advice we give to clients with a task, just 1 and nothing too complicated. 99% of people won’t do the task but they will come back to you for more guidance. Always ask if they have completed the task, if they haven’t, ask they complete it before giving ‘part 2’.
