What Is Focus?

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Focus is my ability to keep my awareness on the person or thing I'm engaged with until I choose to consciously move it to something else. If you can't focus, then you know, you work so hard to save money, so you can go and have this beautiful meal but you can't stay focused long enough to enjoy it. How many times have you gone to a meal and looked at across at the table, across from you and seen someone on their phone rather than enjoying the meal? So if our life is finite, and I very clearly say in the book that life is not short, it's finite, meaning there's a clear definitive end to it, then the question is,

When you were a kid, teachers and parents probably told you to concentrate. And as an adult, you likely often think about how much more productive, present, and happy you'd be if only you had better focus. But despite how much we think about our desire to improve our focus, no one ever gets any training in how to do it and even explains what focus is, exactly.

My guest today is an exception to that rule. He was taught the secrets to concentration when he spent ten years as a Hindu monk, and today he's on a mission to share them with others. His name is Dandapani, and he continues to live as a Hindu priest, though he's now also an entrepreneur and author, with a book just published called The Power of Unwavering Focus. Today on the show, Dandapani defines focus and shares the existential reasons why developing yours is so vital. He explains how that development begins with understanding how the mind is different from awareness, that where awareness goes, energy flows, and the need to bring awareness to attention. We walk through how to stop practicing distraction and start practicing concentration by making each of your daily activities a focused practice, and ultimately, making your whole day a practice. We also discuss how daily sessions of meditation are inadequate for developing focus, how mindfulness is different than concentration, and how the ability to control and direct your awareness is one of the greatest powers you can possess.